


Lizbob Supernatural Meta (season 12)

by lizbobjones



Series: Lizbob Supernatural Meta Collection [14]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Meta Essay, Non Fiction, archived from elizabethrobertajones blog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 13:25:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 45,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17002500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizbobjones/pseuds/lizbobjones
Summary: blood/self harm cw





	1. The Family Story

> **Anonymous**  asked:
> 
> Hello there! I don't know if it has been brought up yet, so I hope you don't mind me asking you - my favorite all-you-can-read meta-SPN-blog! From what we can gather in 12x01, it seems like Mary and John hit off right away, but isn't that a different story than what Cupid told us in 5x14? "Oh, they couldn't stand each other at first, but when we were done with them? Perfect couple!"

* * *

Aaah, good point. I haven’t seen it come up yet although having to travel on the second day of reactions to the show means I’ve maybe missed quite a lot.

I think I reblogged or scrolled past something mentioning at least in passing how this was the ideal version of the story, the one that is the Official Family Story of how it all happened - of course it’s heavily romanticised because it sounds like something Dean could have been reciting to himself as a story all his life and he’s taken a lot of blows to his idea of the family history, but I think this has endured no matter what - and telling it to Mary this way is uncomplicated and unchallenging. In the immediate moment he has no reason to gut her understanding of her own life SO much, and so we know that Dean knows that there’s more too it than that, but he chooses to tell her the fairytale anyway.

I actually suspect that bumping into each other moment was the moment the cupid chose to strike, since it makes sense that’s when they first “see” each other.

Oddly enough, in my rewatch/inflicting the show on my mum for the first time, we just passed Wishful Thinking, which includes this little speech from the girl who was wished into loving the skeevy asshole who started the whole thing:

> HOPE  
> Yeah! It’s the funniest thing. We both grew up here, but I never really knew who he was. Not by name anyway. Until one day last month, it was like I just [sighs] I just saw him for the first time. He was just… glowing. Oh, just glowing. 

and also I’m thinking of this from a Dabb episode, in 8x14 the woman who was demon-dealed into being in love talking about the experience after her husband was dragged off by Hellhounds:

> ALICE  
> I really am. And… I know I shouldn’t be because I loved Carl… I think. I just can’t remember why.  
> […]  
> I mean… Carl grew up around here. We went to school together, and he was always mooning over me. But I never – I used to make fun of him.
> 
> SAM  
> When did you two get together?
> 
> ALICE  
> Valentine’s Day, 2003. I was at this party. Carl was there, and it was like I was seeing him for the first time. You know, suddenly he was cute and smart and funny. It was magic. Carl and I were happy for 10 years. Now he’s dead, and I’m not sad or angry. I’m just…fine.

I’m feeling somewhat certain that Cupid magic is much more powerful in the sense that I feel like this can’t be broken in the same way to have basically near-amnesia as Hope did, going back to not even remembering Wes or what she did while she was enthralled under the wish… With Alice she remembers everything but the instant the deal expires, she can’t summon up the feeling any more (it’s also interesting that demon deals don’t undo on death in any other case, but clearly faking love is a huge leap and without genuine feeling it can’t last in the same way deals for health or life in a loved one obviously don’t undo when the dealer dies, e.g. Ellie in the same episode could have died but her mom would still have been cured of Parkinsons for the rest of her life)

In any case we’re more concerned with the before, so:

> DEAN   
> Are you saying that you fixed-up our parents?
> 
> CUPID   
> Well, not me, but… Yeah. Well, it wasn’t easy, either. Ooh, they couldn’t stand each other at first. But when we were done with them–Perfect couple.

and 

> DEAN  
> March 23rd you walked out of a movie theatre. Slaughterhouse Five. You loved it. And you walked into a big marine and you knocked him flat on his ass. You were embarrassed and he laughed it off and said you could make it up to him with a cup of coffee. So you went to [some place I can’t decipher] and you talked, and he was cute and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song, so when he asked you for his number, you gave it to him even though you knew your dad would be pissed.

(I suspect Mary actually threw John on the floor and passed it off as knocking him over while he was too stunned to process it, and she was horrified she literally threw him on the floor and was having a moment about being a violent, socially mal-adjusted hunter when he asked her out >.> This story feels excessively tidied up even without taking into account the cupids)

Anyway this is all the first spark stuff that leads straight to a date, to asking for a number, etc etc. So I’m guessing it’s a lot like the other 2 cases I mentioned - John and Mary living in the same town, seeing each other around, and fate having got them that far… they take one look at each other, and dismiss each other and breeze past each other in the street, if they even really looked at each other at all.  

(And the cupids, who love love and aren’t sinister at all because they’re too goofy to be in deep in Heaven’s twisted up stuff, watching like a rom com clutching their faces in horror like OH NO THEY HATE EACH OTHER. Seeing it as their duty to fix what is “obviously” an incredible love story waiting to happen despite the fact it wouldn’t happen if they didn’t do it…)

They could easily have never spoken, never known who the other was, and probably not even eyed each other up in the street casually, because John seemed fresh back from the war at that point (I mean I’ve seen meta trying to work out his timeline and he has to fit in a LOT before he meets Mary to the point where his life has no room to breathe, but in 4x03 he did at least seem to be acknowledged as just recently being back - with the PTSD and all, I wonder if he was really thinking of himself as on the market at all) and Mary could EASILY have agreed with Samuel about civilians and felt like finding someone “in the life” would be simpler, especially with the way they moved around a lot - the fact she wants to rebel and leave the life could have sprung from her change in situation when she met John and it’s fascinating me where this conflict came from in her - if she REALLY never wanted the life or if it was something “necessary” for her because of the way her entire life was one big manipulation - and how that affects the choices she makes now and how that reflects on Sam and Dean and the choices THEY make - after all they started discussing this a little last season as well…

Argh, there’s so much in here. :P I can’t wait to see what more we learn about this as the season goes on because it’s clear that at least that story Dean told her is lacking a lot of key information - and I’m wondering if Dean would EVER want to tell her that, or if he’s going to lie by omission and let her believe it for as long as possible… in which case, does something ELSE force Mary to find out about it all?


	2. 12x01: On Subtext and Expectations

[@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) and I got into a discussion about reading the subtext of season 12 so far and as usual I drifted straight to my “shipping moment” of horrified realisation I’d not been paying any attention to what had been under my nose since season 4… Obviously I’ve crammed Dean and Mary in there platonically and this isn’t a Destiel meta per say but I’m never not going to mention how Metatron nearly added ME to the body count of season 9 as why these words mean so much to me :P

Anyway, in times of trouble Robbie Thompson comes to us, speaking words of wisdom:

> METATRON  
> What makes a story work? Is it the plot, the characters, the text? The subtext? And who gives a story meaning? Is the writer? Or you?
> 
> Tonight, I thought I would tell you a little story and let you decide.

I think Robbie comes firmly down on the side of “you” - the author is dead, long live the fandom - if we look at his contribution to the show as a whole. Or, you know, analyse how Metatron is literally giving us/Cas the chance to decide the answer himself, ironically immediately making it our/his decision that gives the story meaning.

Specifically for season 12, Mittens and I were talking about expectations, and those that we build up - I’m using a general “we” here but of course everyone has their own interpretations, and to be honest we were prodding at the mixed and sometimes fearful or disappointed reactions we’ve been seeing around on our dashes about character development (specifically Dean, probably not ALL to blame on the apparent immediate regression to projecting about chick flicks and assuming they’ll die young and bloody because that’s not the first time some people have been worried about Dean’s perpetual character regression this season, but 12x06 having some apparently strong examples hasn’t helped)

I feel like the way we give the story meaning ourselves, in the way we read the plot and characters and text has, ironically, over the years sometimes got into a “the story became the story” way in our readings. I know my instinct on some things immediately is to leap to a conclusion based on what would have happened in seasons past, and the episode itself proves me wrong before the end. Mittens said this about trying to analyse it:

> Assuming the show is following all the old formats [re: narrative patterns that never led to development] and attempting to hit the exact same development beats that it typically has in the past.. I don’t think that works anymore.

And then I started talking about Dabb putting his cards on the table with 11x23, which set me wondering about season 12 so far, and I remembered Dean and Mary’s silent exchange over the backseat of the Impala.

This has been meta’d to death already about Dean’s expectations of her being shattered, but I suddenly find it really important as well just for the fact it was all done in silent delivery (which I think was ALSO meta’d about immediately after the episode just for the joy of subtext as you needed to be able to read between the lines to understand what passed between them). Now we have a bit more season 12 to work with, I like this moment all the more because of its importance in the overall way we - or Dean - should be looking at the story - or Mary - right now. Metatron is just here to remind us that this story is told so much in subtext and our important role in reading it to find what is important to us.

Mary’s look tells Dean something new - something he never actually imagined or even thought of before, but suddenly it’s unmistakably there in the “text” of his life and he has to adapt his thoughts to it and accept the way the story of Mary has changed with new info. With Mary existing on screen, given how little we ever had of her before despite her importance, with a blank slate pretty much everything she does is new and exciting and shakes up the past image of her. I think discovering her hunting in 1980 is the most important instance of outright showing the way the story is being re-written around her to completely defy expectations and to present an entirely new narrative.

On the wider scale, when it comes to all our other characters and plot stuff, I think it’s interesting to look at what Mary means for her part of the story, and how it could apply everywhere. That the story may look superficially like what we expect of it, and to be fitting patterns of what came before - but actually the narrative is extremely disruptive and not telling us the same things that came before. 

It’s making me very skittish about plot speculation, especially for the emotional arcs, but since 11x23 I’ve been certain Dabb era can’t regress the characters and doesn’t really WANT to since Dean found a different, better way to resolve the conflict peacefully. Of course he’s still Dean so he’s not going to transform into a new person overnight, but there have been positive signs, some of which are simultaneously being read as negative signs… which is how we ended up here in the first place. 

> * * *

>  [obsessionisaperfume](http://obsessionisaperfume.tumblr.com/post/153446496952)

> The thing with the kind of HUGE character growth we’re seeing in Dean is that it’s FUCKING SCARY to see that happening to you. So I’m not at all surprised to see Dean take two steps forward and one step back. In fact, I would worry that it wasn’t gong to stick if we DIDN’T get some regression, especially after a huge step forward like we saw at the end of 12.05.
> 
> Not to mention that Sam doesn’t deal well when Dean deviates too far from the old script, and tries to nudge Dean back to it. We saw in this episode that Dean’s now willing to flat out tell Sam no when Sam pushes him back toward the Performed Dean he’s used to.
> 
> I think maybe what Amara did in giving back Mary was provide a catalyst that is going to force Dean to come to terms with a lot of his old behaviors and look directly at why they’re not working any more and why it’s so uncomfortable for him to try to fit back into a person that he’s outgrown.

> * * *
> 
>  [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/153448361692)
> 
> Agree. May also I add something a little out of topic - Amara did give Mary back to Dean, but maybe the role of making her into a catalyst for change in even more on Billie. I see Billie as the new Death in many ways, including acting like they don’t care about the Winchesters personally but then doing so many things for their sake, not necessarily with kittens and rainbows but still giving them important lessons and help in a tough way. (Is Death even dead-dead, or has he just… shifted in something new, after all.)
> 
> Billie talking with Mary about her emotional situation post-resurrection in front of Dean and Sam was a huge catalyst for emotional processing. Mary would have never discussed about those things with her sons, but Billie brings those things out in front of them. She helps them lay the cards on the table. In season 11, she basically gave Dean a lesson about his codependency with Sam, and so on. (If we see the original Death and Billie as manifestations of the same thing, Death leaving Dean the choice to kill him or Sam is also one of those choices offered to the Winchesters to make them learn something in a way or another. Did Death actually think Dean would kill Sam in that Mexican restaurant? Did Billie actually think Mary would accept her offer? Or did they just act as catalysts to put them in a position where they have to face things directly and process them?)

> * * *
> 
>  [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/153453838865)

> Yeah, Death has always delivered the tough lessons, from the first time he ever met Dean, and Billie just keeps them coming in exactly the same way.
> 
> Backsliding on “character development” isn’t regression, the same way that MotW episodes aren’t unimportant because they don’t advance the plot of the story.
> 
> *oh my god am I comparing characters’ emotional arcs with the actual structure of the entire narrative? yes, yes I am*
> 
> The mytharc episodes push the entire plot forward in a mighty heave, but then the MotW episodes give the characters a chance to evaluate, assess, and process that development. They get to step back and breathe and internalize.
> 
> Same thing with any major personal breakthrough a character undergoes. Any sort of change like the ones Dean’s been experiencing are going to throw him off, and it’s expected that there’s going to be some OH SHIT DID I REALLY ADMIT THAT?! sorts of moments.
> 
> It’s like showing up at a nude beach naked and immediately finding the closest towel to wrap around yourself because OH GOSH EVERYONE’S STARING THEY’LL SEE ME OH NO, because somehow you’re too busy worrying about being seen to realize that everyone else is also naked, and they don’t really care that you are, either. That’s sort of the point.
> 
> Dean’s been experiencing that sort of unmasking so much lately that if he didn’t react a little defensively once in a while I’d be concerned that he’s suffered some sort of brain damage, to be honest.
> 
> Especially when he’s being confronted with the “story became the story” of his  _entire freaking life_. Watching his struggle with all of this has been incredible.
> 
> And he’s still got a long ways to go, but I’m enjoying cheering him on.


	3. Parallels between 12x04 and 4x18

I just watched 4x18 with my mum and here’s a few mini notes:

* * *

I had to pause the episode and goggle at her when she pulled out an amazing parallel between 1x18 and here; Dean in a motel parking lot while Sam’s being used as bait, once by John, and once by God

(Of course back then they didn’t have Cas to help :P)

* * *

I also paused so she could read the Kripke’s Hollow menus, and she said “haha because God lives here,” and it struck me as yeah, of course Kripke is the actual God and is to Chuck as he is to “Carver Edlund” - layers and layers you have to peel back under which name he’s using, and they don’t even get to the truth, but the menu reminds us there’s another layer of authorship above “Carver Edlund” within the text of the episode.

* * *

We’ve always sort of known, but I’ve always given the episode the benefit of the doubt it was written straight-faced with Chuck as a prophet, and the “Chuck is God” thing came later. With season 11 hindsight that it’s been thoroughly retconned, actually my plot niggles about this episode disappear entirely. I always found Chuck a bit dim that he didn’t “realise” Sam and Dean were at his door if he’d just written them going to ring his doorbell. He tailors his reaction to easing THEM into processing his existence, and holds off on his “acceptance” of the situation until Sam and Dean have established a better grasp on the situation by putting THEM in the high ground of knowing what’s going on and having to explain it to him.

Likewise, my theory that this is all a test from God holds up and fills more plot holes, specifically “Why did Dean move the car that was already parked” - if it’s a staging ground then at least for Round 1 of Dean vs What Is Written, he’s got to do it, and he’s being manipulated to do it, NOT choosing to move the car of his own free will. Sam pointing out how silly it all sounds underlines that Dean’s forced into it all. The bridge being out etc, I’ve always felt like this was a neutral force of immovable fate (as suggested by the main text) and the only reason they were just butting into it because they knew it would happen. But nowadays I’m way more convinced it’s God actively fucking with them.

Especially taking the burger away from Dean :P

* * *

Re: 12x04 since I only finished watching it like an hour before I hit this episode:

The father in that episode accuses the world of liking fake characters on TV, and here we have:

> PUBLISHER  
> (getting very emotional)  
> Gosh… if only real men were so open and in touch with their feelings. 

&

> DEAN  
> Yup. This is real rock salt, these are real fake IDs.

Never mind Chuck “thinks” he’s psychic and this is briefly paralleled with Sam Wesson in the previous episode having psychic flashes of the Winchester’s lives as if they’re a story… Obviously there’s a whole mess of reality and fiction in this episode, but I like especially the idea of Sam and Dean as “real” characters. I saw someone already mentioning Dean maybe remembering being a real fake character on TV in The French Mistake, and I’m reminded of the time he was a fake real character on TV in Changing Channels, but this episode here is when the show really goes off the rails as incredibly postmodern, and right from the start of that it’s challenging the ~reality~ of Sam and Dean

* * *

And of course the episode has some of Sam’s deepest self-reflection on using his powers in season 4 before it all goes to hell, because he has to ask Chuck about his course, and I see a LOT of Chuck-as-God talking to Sam there in the careful, deliberate way he works Sam through the conversation and gives him chances to reflect, asks the hard questions and tries to get Sam to see what he’s doing without TELLING him to stop, which is fascinating… Then later Dean has a go at him over his powers which would be an obvious chance to tell Dean everything that Sam misses…

Anyway having JUST watched Sam telling Magda that powers don’t make you evil… It’s complicated but I’m really glad he’s moved on because that episode after wallowing in season 4 for the last month hurt enough. I find it interesting that Sam doesn’t know if he still has those powers or not. He’s told he didn’t need the feather to fly, but at no point since season 5 has he even TRIED using his powers, demon blood or not, no matter how useful they might be to know for sure if he can or not

(1x14 reminders bring to mind that Sam did shove the wardrobe out from in front of the door he was trapped behind - he actually hasn’t moved anything except demons with his mind since season 1 and that was his only telekinetic thing he ever did… He does however list it as one of his powers when talking to Magda… Anyway, they get trapped behind heavy shit all the time, so Sam’s powers might be way more useful than “just” dealing with demons but he won’t use it :P)


	4. Dean and Pie In Season 12

> **[andimeantittosting](http://andimeantittosting.tumblr.com/)**  asked:
> 
> I hesitated to send this, because I thought it might be too silly, but I decided what the hell. Before the episode aired, when everyone was analyzing the pie vs. cake stuff, the first association I made was with the skipping rhyme that goes, "strawberry shortcake, huckleberry pie, who will be my lucky guy?" And, well, the first thing we see is Dean standing by the strawberry shortcake sign, then a pie crosses the screen, leading the camera (and us) to Cas, who is, by extension, Dean's lucky guy.

* * *

This is in no way too silly. :D I love it. 

“Strawberry shortcake” is RIGHT there next to Dean and if that’s a thing then strawberry shortcake > pie is a weirdly strong association to have them right there like that? 

I mean we KNOW the pie thing is an actual thing when it comes to symbolism and non-Destiel Dean stuff and Dabb has said himself that the pie thing is something he’s ended up writing a lot. Next episode it looks like Dean gets his whole pie and maybe even gets to eat it, for the parts of the symbolism to do with denying Dean what he wants/ “needs the most” in Amara’s words, now his mom’s back that part of the symbolism is over, as it were, hence pie being off the menu because he doesn’t need to order it, and we’re into a brave new world where the cake part of the cake vs pie symbolism is what’s left for Dean to grapple with in a way… 

Also Cas glances over at Dean before he leaves with the coffee which I think is a brilliant little Destiel moment just that Cas stops to look and check Dean’s still there…

So the pie crosses between them, in a way, but neither of them get it… But Cas looks right at that strawberry shortcake board with Dean lurking behind it. Almost in a way yeah the pie goes between Dean to Cas so it’s asking that for Dean, but Cas is looking back at Dean, across all those lil pies he didn’t buy, the “main” pie that travelled across the screen to him, and back at Dean framed beside the board with all the cake menu options…

* * *

This post just for having this in a tag maybe for my own reference tbh

it wasn’t until I wrote [a post talking about Karen Singer](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/152160893008/elizabethrobertajones-im-gonna-go-out-on-a) and threw a cutesy title on it from that episode that I now see in my notifications here and there, that I really started thinking about the double use of a phrase in that scene (this is a lie - I already did in [my rewatch](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/128652075228/spn-hellatus-rewatch-5x15-or-gratuitous-zombie) last summer, but I mean, from this angle)

> DEAN  
> I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that you like pies. 

& 

> KAREN  
> I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you’ve never been in love.

I was talking in the rewatch about the repeated phrase mostly just kind of putting them on a similar emotional level when it came to relating to each other (easy, but still unfamiliar… possible zombie pun because talking about body parts indirectly, who knows :P) 

now I’m sort of relating the actual comments together… Not in a super profound & deep way, hence this just being a “i want this in my [pie tag](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/Dean-vs-cake)” post but the two together do seem to intrinsically link love and pie… Of course the last post I made happened to be talking about parallels between Karen and Mary and the pie between them and Dean as a sign of love etc in a motherly way, but there are [other readings](http://consulting-cannibal.tumblr.com/post/70754630875/based-on-this-chat-post-i-just)… But this also gives us a great angle to link romantic love to pies, when it comes to that elusive subtext that actually makes up a great deal more of my sprawling Dean vs Cake tag than the family stuff. 

It’s in the catchment area of Dean x Lisa build up in season 5 for Dean to have the potential at the apple pie life - in the wider picture “pie” becomes the expected, heterosexual, normal life that Dean’s been teased with on and off (and oh dear it occurs to me this ties into all the masses of meta I wrote tangential to Dean and Lisa which I’m not digging out because it’s a Russian doll of like 14 different very long Dean is bi posts), while the cake stuff takes on a bizarre but compelling metaphor for Dean expressing his bisexuality… (which… I think we actually have to blame Scout for. I don’t make the rules) - there’s a post deep in my pie tag where I probably at 3am like this post deliriously compared the pie and cake thing to tarot cards where they have different readings upside down - cake is bad in the family context (Dean rejecting the cake Sam brought him, Mary finally giving him his damn pie) and good in a self expression context (Dean unhealthily wallowing in the familiar with pie, branching out and growing as a person by accepting he can eat cake at last)

Anyway Karen relates the pies to her husband, and they’re romantically coded, but to Dean she acts as a mother figure in the episode. She does however challenge him that he hasn’t been in love, with phrasing that links it to the liking of pies… As [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) pointed out (sorry to drag you into this 3am post) [here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152166222435/elizabethrobertajones), Karen’s communication with Bobby was actually terrible with the “peace not pain” thing, and I’ve coincidentally just [read this](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/152262060342/good-talk-small-talk-or-why-cas-isnt-a-brother) by [@postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://tmblr.co/mf4M6zzYHBBds6ET4AADySQ)(ditto) which is specifically focussing on Cas and Dean’s communication being A+ better than with other family (boiled down to Dean getting a “good talk” from Mary, echoing himself to Sam in 8x18) which is the other side of it, that maybe we don’t have to use this specific idealised lack of communication but lots of pie baking to convey romance, and there might be another way, just as there might be more on the menu than just pie, as he’s rejecting the same advice linked to the phrase that also applied to liking pie. 

(I’m just having an “it’s all connected!!” moment here, that’s all for now :P)

* * *

> **Anonymous**  asked:
> 
> Dean has such a complex relationship with pie :p

* * *

Oh god me and my 14 page tag about him and his complicated relationship with pie completely agree:

<http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/Dean-vs-cake>

I’m so amused at how it covers like his full range of emotions, from “repressed bisexuality” to “mommy issues” 

I’m still not over the RAT HELL pie from last episode - I know there’s a few posts going around framing it next to the rat poison from the dinner scene which is why I called it that, since it sums things up nicely, but it was also prominently placed in front of the husband and wife earlier in the episode, when they were watching Dean trying to get ahold of Sam after they’d tied him up in the basement:

Here they’re united in what they’ve done to their daughter and to the intruding “social worker” who’s stumbled on the secret. Of course the mom has different ideas about how to deal with this than the father - she tells him “we need to leave town” but she’s already planning to kamikaze the family and take them all to Heaven where everything will be better. The pie between in this instant represents their supposed unity as a family, but from this point on the Mom was working from a different page, going far more extreme in her attempt to preserve the family, to which the father was still an awful person, but in the end I think oblivious to how the mother poisoned him 

(the mom in this episode as The Darkest Mary Mirror Ever is something I am never ever going to be over - I love it so much :D It’s seeming to promise everything I want for her to overcome, from her Azazel deal to what happened to John as a result of her death, and of course Sam as Magda and what Mary feels she did to him and of course Sam on the far side of that, looking at Magda from a place of experience but also that he’s healed so that maybe he’s ready to meet Mary head on about this when it comes up… I hope).

(Ugh I’m so hung up on Sam and Mary I’m getting distracted from talking about Dean and PIE)

So yeah to get back to that, for Dean the whole “apple pie life” is something which has always been represented as a certain sort of “respectable” (re: Carmen) settled life in suburbia (aw Dean in 6x01 with Lisa, kill me :P) and even without the good, if ridiculous, work in season 10 to firmly establish pie as heterosexuality, and cake as maybe trying something new (and the fact that the show even HAD a pre-existing nonsense cake or pie binary to BEGIN WITH pfft - as usual I think you can blame Dabb for this in 7x03 though of course Dean vs not getting his pie is one of the oldest themes, right back to Scarecrow in season 1 and by season 2 firmly entrenched on the safer theme of Dean and happiness and family especially)… 

Anyway in 12x02 we see that Dean’s illusions about Mary and pie are completely wrong, and something which has been I think textually associated since 5x16 (Dabbbbb *shakes fist* (he knows he does it btw which makes it worse :P)) and so the side of things which needs to be rebuilt for Dean when it comes to his relationship to dessert foods with family and his preconceptions is challenged. I think Lisa was only loosely metaphorically branded “apple pie life” and at this point I can’t remember if anyone ever openly said it about her and Dean going off to make a life with her, but the associations are there anyway because that’s what the “apple pie life” looks like… 

Pie broadly represents the respectable, EXPECTED domestic life and of course the cake symbolism in season 10 did some good work showing us that Dean might want more, accompanied in the end with an episode where he openly SAID he wanted more, in 10x16, which of course we all analysed to be something ELSE than what he had with Lisa as the original respectable apple pie endgame because he had already tried that experience and found himself not fitting and it not being entirely what he wanted - season 11 then went on to the “someone in the life/what’s it like settling down with a hunter” stuff which was on the same trajectory although I don’t think ever directly linked to cake and/or pie.

Since then things have got complicated and weird and Dean’s relationship with Mary has got complicated and weird and pie lost its sweet sweet taste of the Ideal Life - the same thing Mary lost overnight, Dean’s now suffering serious internal damage over. I’ve talked a lot about how he projected that ideal, best shown in 2x20, but 3x10 also has him seeing Lisa in his dream minutes before his own subconscious tells him that all his desires and personality were forced onto him by John or what he thinks John would approve of, which I take as a sign that Dean trying to live this normal heterosexual life is pretty much trying to live up to those impossible standards too, though he tries. Apparently Dean visiting Lisa was moved from 5x18 to 5x17 as well, so that would have been immediately before he gives up all his John-coded stuff - jacket, car keys, gun - and puts them in a box before going to say yes to Michael, sort of putting her and the possibility to live that life into the box as well… I know the line is that the jacket was lost and it’s probably true, though they could have got another if they really really needed it, but I like the symbolism that he starts season 6 without it.

Anyway I’m not sure how much more of my Dean and pie tag I have left to summarise (Ooops sorry for the rambling :P) but basically the RAT HELL pie shows in very stark, unsubtle imagery how the pie is now poisoned and the sort of dynamics of this family associated with it are toxic and miserable. Obviously not saying this is exactly how it is with the Winchesters - Dean cares a great deal about Mary and needs just a world view shift that takes him away from these stifling ideals that he’s emotionally oppressed by and will make him only unhappy in the long term… Something as I said with the season 10 and 11 work on this theme he’s already iiinching towards, but if this imagery pays off, it will be another huge step forwards for Dean in self acceptance and trying new things, and new ways.

If he’s actively disinterested in pie and rejecting it now, I am FASCINATED for when he next eats some cake on screen… :D


	5. 12x06: On Sam and Belonging

> **Anonymous**  asked:
> 
> 1)) Do you think Sam really gets the "this world doesn't fit anymore" thing? IMO we have conclusive evidence from Dean, not just in general but specifically after 2.01 he guesses johns deal because he "felt wrong" and had a "hole" or "pit in his stomach" that he mentions a few times, most notably to Tessa when she gives his memories back. What Billy says to Mary puts this in a new perspective that isn't only a grief/survivors guilt/depression thing that the boys have, but a specific symptom for not dying when you were supposed to. Now obviously Sam has cheated death too, but he hasn’t expressed these sentiments on screen, and definitely not repeatedly past the point that they were relevant for a specific arc. We know he was recklessly suicidal before s04, but it isn’t played as anything more than the loss of Dean, and because Dean is still alive for S03 we get a very different immediate reaction from San to being resurrected..? 

* * *

 

While I was working up to an answer to this, I stumbled on this discussion:

<http://bold-sartorial-statement.tumblr.com/post/153425891293/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-awed-frog>

which I guess I will reblog in a moment, although it’s not strictly necessary to this reply, it focuses a lot on the way Sam relates to other characters and then how we relate to him. 

It’s actually more reminded me of my thoughts about how Sam’s story is told vs Dean’s - I’m going a step more meta than all this character analysis (which is very interesting) to mention how they were discussing Soulless!Sam as one of the examples… I think it’s an interesting comparison to look at Dean’s emotional stuff being told personally, through his actions, expressed feelings and discussions with other characters, while Sam, who until season 9 was the mytharc character, always had that expressed metaphorically (which ties into a lot of other arcs about them)

To which end, I think actually something like soulless!Sam or Sam’s failed season 3 arc which ran out of time and turned into the powers!Sam arc in season 4, are the metaphorical representations of how he’s dealing with those same feelings through his actions or by what happens to him. Soulless!Sam is a better example because we never got the arc in season 3 of Sam truly sliding dark to save Dean at the expense of himself, but coming immediately after season 2 it would have directly compared to Dean’s feeling of emptiness there leading to him bringing Sam back at the expense of himself (that we DID all see play out on screen in excruciating, heart-rending detail). 2x22 where Azazel asks if Sam came back right immediately after Sam shoots Jake repeatedly in a way which quickly turns to “in cold blood” was the hook for that arc and of course is directly linked to Sam’s resurrection, and is the culmination of all of Dean’s bad feelings about being resurrected in that season sort of being handed over to Sam by sacrificing himself. (Sam takes him to task for handing over the burden in early season 3, but as you point out Sam’s overall season 3 reaction is very different because they were going to tell it differently then didn’t tell it at all :P)

Anyway, soulless!Sam followed by Sam’s hell trauma in season 7 is a much better example because we get a direct result of Sam being resurrected, something undeniably wrong with him, and the story has room to play it out in full. Of course as Marghe points out in the linked meta, Sam is entirely “other” through the first half of season 6, everything is Dean’s POV for the emotional arc for obvious reasons, and we really don’t get to grapple with how Sam’s feeling about being brought back - truly - until 6x12 (Refusing to hug Cas because he’s so concerned about how he was brought back is a good sign of something being very wrong with him and I’m going to underline it as our one real example for you, just because I can >.>). Souless!Sam in 6x11 has plenty of words to say about being brought back as what he is and if you take it all metaphorically, is very much about Sam reacting to the massive trauma by choosing to feel nothing and wishing he could stay that way and not face up to it. Of course he can’t hide from it forever, so once he has his soul back, it’s not long before he’s being heavily triggered by the hell memories, all presented as a magical thing wrong with his soul with a layer of metaphor to make it ABOUT how he’d be coping with trauma if it wasn’t that he was LITERALLY seeing the devil around every corner. 

But Sam does tend to bottle up and is remarkably bad at sharing his trauma unless it’s something like these examples where there’s something so obviously physically messed up (was he “brought back wrong”, demon blood, no soul, hell trauma as a literal magical effect on his soul) that it can be expressed this way instead. As nothing much magical has happened to Sam lately, he’s been fairly quiet about expressing himself compared to the big arcs where it was undeniable. Meanwhile Dean of course has been reacting emotionally to everything from the start so all through this no matter what’s happening there’s a very different way to follow the story, with Dean as the emotional thread, so there’s always much clearer examples of him reacting in certain ways to things. 

Anyway I think it’s fair enough in Sam’s overall lived experience for us to say that he’s been through a lot of things which would allow him to relate to the experience that Mary is having, but he’s rarely expressed it in such a way. Coming back empty after being in the Cage in season 6 is such an abstract concept to apply his soullnessness to the situation compared to Dean in say 2x04 yelling brokenly about what’s dead should stay dead, that it seems incomparable on the emotional level of what the characters have directly said and done, despite how it obviously could have directly affected Sam emotionally the same, and he just hasn’t EXPRESSED it like that, his lived experience still matches the feeling. 

(I kind of think all the bringing up Sam’s old mytharc days so many times in a row is partly to put it all back in our minds how much he HAS suffered as he so often doesn’t talk about it, that since he seems to have very little language for expressing things himself, reminders that all that happened to him and that he has experienced has to do in the place of reminding us how he’s felt before and to give him a chance to start talking about it and expressing actual emotions out loud about his mytharc experiences…)

Actually apart from anything else it’s really hard to keep all your ducks in a row about who was dead when and so on. :P It’s only just occurred to me now, counting on my fingers to make sure I didn’t miss anything, that while Sam never actually died, I think his most recent near-death experience in that way was 9x01 where his conversation with Death was paralleled to Dean and Tessa in 2x01, but again his “response” to being dragged back from death against his wishes was to immediately become possessed by an angel, metaphorically disassociating from himself until his personality was entirely consumed, once again not giving him a “real” response to resurrection but a metaphorical one again. He doesn’t get a chance until 9x10 to tell Dean that he was ready to die. In 9x11 he tries self-sacrificing and Cas stops him, and after that as far as I recall aside from bouts of extreme recklessness here and there Sam pretty much bottles it all back up again? (I get fuzzier on what happened in canon the closer we get to current episodes >.>)

Of course now the show is getting really personal and emotional for everyone, Sam’s in this weird place where we may be deeply sympathetic towards everything that’s happened to him, but we don’t have a whole long “on the record” list about how he’s feeling and felt over the years, vs how Dean’s worn it all on his sleeve and has one of the most complex inner lives of any fictional character I’ve ever come across. I mean, you assume ALL characters have that complex inner life, but the way Dean’s is splashed all over the screen is immensely personal and open compared to many characters to whom we’re just given the specific glimpses needed for plot and subplot - because Dean was the emotional counterbalance character we got more than necessary all the time almost as emotional world building for the show, and we’ve had 12 years of that so it’s just naturally expanded. And leaves us in an awkward position that Sam seems to have been through just as much or more than Dean, brings up his own struggles and you can be like “where’s she at though?” about his emotional journey.


	6. An Animated Japanese Erotica Chick

Honestly after reading [@thevioletcaptain](https://tmblr.co/mkrTGi1U6K9-kgo9KV69Itw) pointing out the chick flick was a “sunset on a beach” and the anon laughing at my Sam rant I’m just gonna… break an unspoken personal rule about just reblogging shit from my rewatch for no reason. I’m still laughing. This needs amending.

Look at this fucking purple and blue and pink sunset on a beach:

It’s like a fucking Cockles/bi!Dean/Destiel shipper clickbait article. “Let’s just make a bi coloured sunset with 2 people in silhouette standing on a fucking beach”

[Originally posted by jpoxxed](https://tmblr.co/Z26-xw1eCyjzS)

&

I love this family so much look at them eating shit food and having extremely metaphoric conversations about chick flicks.

…

Because Sam, oh Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam *pats him on the head and takes his pizza away* *sits on the coffee table in front of him and starts eating the pizza while I drag out my pin board covered in red string*

I would first like to point your attention, Samuel Eugene Winchester (didn’t they give him a middle name at some point? I can’t remember what it is) to you TELLING Dean he loves chick flicks and Dean conceding that fact, not 7 episodes ago. I’d also like to stick this picture of Sam’s Smuggest Smug Face To Ever Smug in 7x12 between these two episodes and pin some string into it, because the last time you and Dean argued about Dean x hentai (pfft 7 minutes in and I can see Mel in my mind’s eye taking a victory lap for Yockey x tentacles :P) was when you delivered the crushing finishing move of “are you going to watch more anime or are you strictly into Dick” and Dean was fucking obliterated and probably still wakes up in a cold sweat about that one. Let’s rewind a sec - to Dean trying to argue to Jody that she’s one of the badass chicks who don’t fit the chick flick demographic and I would like to zero in on your fucking FACE

as you sit there chewing pizza staring into space and hardcore judging your brother. You know Dean likes chick flicks and you are being presented with a unique insight into the mind of your brother here, and you do not waste it after debating how dead this is going to get you to open your mouth.

You know one stone cold fact about Dean: your entire adult relationship (which began in 1x01 - for the sake of argument your childhood ends the night you ran away to Stanford) has been based on “no chick flick moments” and knowing at the same time that Dean is the most chick flick guy in existence, though it may have taken you a long time to understand that and to begin viewing him this way knowingly. In fact it took you 12 years plus a couple of rounds of Hell each and a death bed confession style moment to get there but you forced him to admit this fact. You are existing post-“no chick flick moments”. Dean knows this. You know this.

You are on the other side of the curtain.

Dean is projecting and you’re *in* on it for once in your life.

You’re not being blanked out or having anything you asked deflected. You’re seeing Dean construct a facade, pretending to be all manly and not liking chick flicks and shit (probably so he doesn’t cry at the ending of this one tbh) and so here he goes presenting a ridiculous suggestion to Jody that there’s a way to be cool and a chick but not go for the chick flicks, because obviously Dean is one of the cool chicks who is too badass for chick flicks, like Jody.

You’re just… “no, Dean, no. You’re badass and love chick flicks and it has literally no correlation to how manly you are.” (You don’t know that Dean called himself a thirteen year old girl the other day so you’re missing some of the puzzle of Dean’s struggle with masculinity and feelings right now but you sure as hell know more than Jody does)

So you’re in a safe space to tease Dean and what do you do? (Well the writer of this episode clearly boned up on Jody episodes and hit on a gold mine in the process) You know that this whole “you love chick flicks” thing is of utter secrecy between you and Dean, you’ve been entrusted with that; you know Dean has accidentally or not put you behind his armour in this conversation, and you can’t betray that and crack it open and tease him for the very crack in the armour you got through, but oh boy your brother is asking for it and this is one of those learning experiences you need to make sure he will never, ever forget. (It’s for his own good.)

Whether it’s being around Jody or “strictly into Dick” is something warming in your soul that you wake up at night smiling and say “I said that” and pat yourself on the back and roll over and fall back asleep, you’re thinking it now. You remember it. Dean’s pretending he doesn’t like chick flicks so what’s out in the public domain? “Animated Japanese erotica chick”

*sound of a cheap fighting video game* ONE HIT K.O.

Dean probably should never have told you he likes chick flicks

Cuz if he’s going to pretend he doesn’t in front of you, well it’s only fair to remind him of what he IS on the record for watching (while in his season 7 downward spiral where he did not give a fuck any more about who knew what he was doing because he thought you were all going to die via pissed off Godstiel) but of course at the time you saw him watching it when he was utterly bereft about Cas’s god rampage/betrayal. When you were teasing him about it later, you were constructing your own false binary of anime or Dick. Cool chick or chick-flicks chick?

The cool chick watches anime porn instead but you know that’s not all Dean was doing, just like you kNOW he likes the fucking chick flicks in the first place so the whole thing is a joke.

You know that he’s pretending he doesn’t.

You know he wasn’t really watching anime but you were worried about his obsession over finding Dick. You know he was watching anime after losing Cas, which hit him SO hard and you knew it at the time. You’re saying, I KNOW YOU, DEAN. You’re full of crap and I love you, but I know when you’re ~subliminating~ and I know when you’re projecting - I told you so when you tried to pretend you didn’t like chick flicks a few weeks ago and it was your deathbed confession that you did. And I’m gonna remind you I know you so much better than you think because I remember this shit and you, dear brother, like chick flicks and you like anime porn, but even then I knew you better.

(And seriously, though, season 7 and 7x12 in particular (thank you Robbie, who also named Dick for us in 7x06) set up that binary and turned the entire thing into a metaphor; some seasons are subtly homoerotic. Some end with Dean boning Dick with Cas… 7x12 was spectacular for eroticising Dean’s obsession with Dick via language - the last shot when you watch the deleted scene that was actually the end of the episode cut for time, is Dean settling back at the laptop, opening it up, and reading about Dick erecting a tower - metaphoric for what shit he’s looking at instead of anime and confirming Sam’s anime or Dick binary? Naaah. :P)

([x](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/153341917728))

“Be proud of your hobbies. Makes you who you are”

^ all I really needed to say

> * * *
> 
>  [durenjtmusings](http://durenjtmusings.tumblr.com/post/153355921827)

> Thank you @[elizabethrobertajones ](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/153352165213)this was a fun read.
> 
> In Summary: “I’m calling you out on your sh*t Dean, and in a safe space, in a reasonably safe way.”  Really, this kind of conversation only happens when they are with each other and/or with Cas (who they think won’t get most of it anyway) - or maybe with Charlie near the end.  This is a clear indicator that at least Sam sees Jody as a family member. And he is even perhaps trying to get Dead to cut the posing crap in front of Jody - because she IS family.
> 
> It was great to see Sam here comfy and safe, relaxed (practically a part of that couch) and full of sass. Remember - soulless Sam spoke what was on his mind, because that was what he normally repressed daily. I am reminded of Bobby’s ‘final scene’ (b4 death) where the boys were arguing over black licorice - where Sam was being 100% himself, speaking his mind and not caring who heard it.  So in this episode, Sam ragging on Dean in front of Jody means he is being fully himself. That is SO great to see - like a balm on my soul. Yip-frickin-eee.

* * *

 [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/153356666433/durenjtmusings-elizabethrobertajones)

Thank you! The comparison to Sam and Dean on Bobby’s sofa has been killing me ALL DAY. One of the only scenes on the show that just always makes me sob until my eyes hurt.

And you’re right, Sam calling Dean on his crap in front of Jody is including Jody in the family by encouraging Dean to be open with her.

I find it interesting in 10x08 she asked Dean that he could talk to her any time he needed it, and she repeats this offer later this episode. She really wants to be a safe space for Dean to talk but we don’t really see him actually opening up to her - since Dean CAN open up to strangers/trusted close acquaintances, and Jody’s been part of the team a while (7x12, actually, the first time she worked alone with them  :P) but he really hasn’t seemed to take her up on it, even if they’re actually really close to her as a Last Living Friend For Like Seven Years kind of thing and clearly take being anywhere in the area as an excuse to drop by these days. Sam’s actually had many more emotional conversations with Jody over the years - I think Dean and Jody talking together in 11x12 was about their only time they’ve got deep and it wasn’t really unloading about all his current issues…

I mean he could talk to her off-screen but we don’t know about that and Jody asking again suggests he really doesn’t :P

idk, Dean has a lot of walls and Sam’s got through most of them over the years but Jody hasn’t yet and since she’s doing really really well on the “not dead yet” olympics I hope she gets through a few of Dean’s walls. I don’t think he’s shown much actual vulnerability to her yet, and it was clearly so frustrating to Sam to realise how Dean clams up around anyone who hasn’t pried him open yet. Jody is comforting and friendly and there but Sam’s the one who’s been sharing in her trauma year after year (Bobby too, before Dean in the rankings), so I think he’s much more emotionally close to her. It’s possible Sam’s never really realised the extent of Dean’s “you must be a level 8 friend to unlock my tragic backstory” issues, until he realises that literally watching an actual chick flick with Dean “yeah I love them” Winchester in front of someone who hasn’t passed some arcane level of understanding with Dean is still going to get shit from him about them and Dean trying to act like he’s too cool for chick flicks.  

…

really though I’m just here for the magnificent faces Sam pulls. :P


	7. 12x07 and the panties thing

not that I’m re-watching this scene over and over all day or anything but

okay so he does that, fair enough, and then we get a shot of Sam helpfully destroying all our hopes and dreams and then suddenly

Cas has the panties but then

[brief camera change again]

Clearly a different take where they’re back on the sofa where they remain for the rest of the scene

do you realise how close we came to a godless universe where Dean just put them back down instead of throwing them at Cas? 

I’m doing some serious counting of blessings here that this continuity-fucking take is what they went with anyway.


	8. Destiel from season 11 to 12

> **Anonymous**  asked:
> 
> So do you think at any point they will address the tail end of s11's Dean/Cas dynamic - it was so strong I was so excited but s12 is such a let down, it's all just back to subtext - canonically how Amara channelled Dean's longing over Cas's heart to appear to him, how he cried out for Cas over Amara's hold on him, pining etc etc etc ... just wondering what your thoughts are as your meta is awesome :) sorry if you've already written about this, Im new and haven't found the post...

* * *

The tl;dr is that I’m not disappointed at all but because I had very different expectations than this for season 12 despite the nice sort of Destiel time in the sun at the end of 11, and it’s been meeting them pretty exactly so far, leaving me very satisfied by the way they’re pandering to the meta crowd with their obvious subtext we recognise and play with all the time. The shortest way it can be summed up is just saying I was not surprised or upset by Dean calling Cas a brother in the car scene in 11x23 and have been reading the text accordingly before and after while maintaining 100% Destiel cheerfulness :P

This is LONG though

I think the answer kind of is in two parts here - first of all what season 11 did or didn’t do… I think subtextually of course all of that happened ([and I was one of the ones yelling loudly in delight about how it did](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/pining-not-praying)), and in a way it feels sort of silly to even try and argue that Amara didn’t use Cas to find Dean etc just because it’s so much neater to just go with it… And of course his pining and worrying was everywhere. 

But I still think putting together the argument about how strongly Destiel it was was something that we were drawing from the (powerful, very real, definitely not a reach to get there) subtext. Essentially, still kind of written to please those of us who like DeanCas stuff without necessarily crossing over any lines beyond the sort of stuff where it’s fine to textually state how much Dean cares for Cas. 

Like, in season 10, on both sides “love” was thrown around, which was a step up from season 9′s puzzle piece love reveal you had to subtract the “all for one man” from the “in love with humanity” to solve the equation, but was still ambiguous about application. In season 10 both times were in a “I know  **you**  love  **me** ” way, rather than the more important direct “i love you” confession which takes more to say and has to be done properly and mean everything when it’s said in fiction (so even the season 8 “I need you”s only came close but didn’t say everything/enough)… 

In season 11 it textually ends with Dean trying to cram Cas into the box as a brother, which, well, the label is wrong… And Cas seemed to know it too, and I was certainly squinting at Dean having his own discomfort saying it (you can go through my tag for that conversation since it ended up generating a lot of meta for the full picture)

<http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/the-beer-run>

But, however, since we’re talking about TEXTUALLY, while the climax was very Destiel strong, and in all the dramatic moments Dean showed more than enough appropriate concern about Cas… It was valid concern in whatever dynamic you like them as long as you approve of them being close, but it still wasn’t necessarily making promises about actual romantic relationship stuff textually? There was nothing much saying textually that Dean being concerned about Cas was openly romantic, even if we read it that way. The textual word on it was they were like brothers, whatever else you read into the nuances of that scene. Meaning, these actions canonically happened but they were not indisputably Destiel as a romantic dynamic, even though of course I was reading them that way and celebrating it all, along with most every one else who is positive about Destiel.

11x11′s “pining for someone else” is the most infuriatingly vague statement of the year but you can argue what it meant and if it included Cas… it can form a centre of a lot of equations doing stuff like subtracting Amara’s influence based on what Dean says later and looking at who’s left, or using the pining connection from even later in the season, etc, but it’s still a big ask for us to put together that suggestion ourselves. The rest is slight of hand on the visual associations/continuity, and a lot of non-shipping-specific concern Dean has for Cas. We read them romantically in general, so it reads romantically to us. 

And so, as far as we are concerned, OUR version of the text is that it was romantic, and that’s canon for us, AND I will argue that the show, writers, actors and especially the director of 11x21 with that set up, all have a strong part to play in creating a version of canon that reads that way… it’s still not the surface layer, even if the surface layer is bland and doesn’t manage to truly capture all the feeling we see under the surface in a way that makes sense. (There are more than enough moments where the most sense a scene or plot can make is WITH the romantic reading, and others fall short of explaining all the gaps - the pining subtext of season 11 is very very much one of those things, and all the more reason the surface text of “brother” feels so empty, especially since the show has such an obvious brotherly relationship to compare to and, well, it doesn’t do all this :P)

To get to part 2: what’s still happening in season 12, where of course we follow on with the way I saw all of season 11 stuff as a very compelling but ultimately still subtext storyline…

(BUT happening canonically in the subtext… if that’s a thing… Like, these points I’m going to mention are huge things which to me are very much about the structure of the season or continuations of very canonical and important arcs, which have a Destiel element, however subtextually the romantic part of it might be gleaned - again, to me just reading Dean and Cas as romantic by default (because there’s more than enough evidence starting right back at the beginning never mind a volley of sideways, indirect love confessions in 8, 9 and 10, and I see no reason to assume it’s ever been retracted) makes it much easier to see these things rather than looking to see how it might suggest that it is romantic; assuming it is since that part is canonical to me, and analysing the show backwards from that assumption to explain where it came from this time, if you get what I mean…) 

Anyway, having it “still” in subtext is very different from it “going back” into subtext to me, in how much worth I’m placing on that telling (aka it is and always has been how we’ve got the story delivered to us, no different season from season). [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) has been fielding a few similar questions of nearing midseason disappointment about a lack of big Destiel narrative, and has pointed out that in season 11 we similarly felt upset about a lack of one, before suddenly in the rear half of the season when everything actually got going, all the Destiel beats played out in a dream.

Anyway, promise of multiple Cas-centric episodes aside, Dean is responsible for most of our emotional Destiel storytelling as a continuous thing just because he’s on screen so much more (Cas has and does carry his side of it, but by disappearing off screen for episodes at a time, for example season 10 especially when it was aaall on him, he takes the entire Destiel narrative with him in those cases - the rear of season 11 put it square on Dean’s shoulders so we got it every episode while Cas was possessed, even by his absence). It means that we have to look at what Dean’s up to more often than Cas, and if he’s not carrying it himself, it seems to whisk away the narrative entirely.

At the moment, Dean’s emotional energy is being gobbled up by Mary, the “main” thing he is concerned about in the same way that being worried about Cas after 11x14 devoured his time and emotional energy. There are many times when concern about Sam devours Dean’s attention or vies for it alongside stuff to do with other characters, including Cas at many points but characters like Lisa and Benny have suffered by losing out to Sam as well… 

Of course this is 100% reasonable for Mary to have his attention right now because it’s such a huge thing, and I’m more than happy for Mary to take centre stage for Dean and Sam because this is such a huge thing for the show to do, and I want it done right for them, so it’s entirely understandable that the main emotional arc weighs heavily towards their reactions to having her back and what happens from there.

But a very good sign to me was that the start of 12x03 balances Cas and Mary as very very equal characters to each other, facing the exact same issues from different directions. It is clear they’re of a mind even if their process to get there has been completely different. And their shit was presented in such a way that it’s also about how it affects Dean. Cas also leaves at the start of the episode, mirroring Mary leaving at the end, and we all know about Dean’s abandonment issues and so on - Mary is the bigger hit, but Cas leaving, well, Dean said himself back in 8x22 that it “sounds like him” that he’d disappear right when he seemed settled at home. And that pattern has followed again and again since then, with Cas’s various missions and uncertainty about if he’s allowed to stay or both pushing him out of the family home again and again, much to Dean’s pain.

Dean may have more experience with Cas leaving, and a bigger hole in his heart left by Mary doing it, but 12x04 goes on to again show Dean disgruntled about Cas being gone, though of course his emotional real estate still filled up with Mary. However, as a storytelling thing, the “emotional real estate” is being spent on Mary and Cas AT ALL as part of an arc - with no more than the usual undercurrent of threads to Sam, e.g. of course Dean always has an undercurrent of emotional subplot with Sam and something can be stirred up in record time if needed, because they’re always together and they have a ton of shared crap. I’m not sure of an actual story point to it right now looking at all the season 11 episodes so far aside from an ongoing compare and contrast between them though. Even Sam being kidnapped didn’t have a huge change or effect on Dean, or cause storyline repercussions in the way previous losses have kicked off arcs such as Gadreel or whatever.

But the points of interest that make very obvious subplots in Dean’s emotional landscape are about Mary and Cas leaving, and even if they’re split off in very different ways, again, in how it looks to Dean, the fact they do the same thing to him puts them together in a way, which means Cas is tangentially linked to the hugest emotional thing going on with Dean. It carries him along with it, so that he will not be emotionally left behind on some smaller arc, but symbolically you can tie them directly together, and be certain that Dean has felt at least a part of it together.

Letting Dean’s side of the Destiel arc ride on the coattails of the HUGE Mary arc isn’t laziness in writing, but a very good way to keep Cas’s part fresh and relevant to Dean despite the need to focus on Mary as his main emotional problem to overcome, and to tie Mary into Dean’s issues in return, as of course while it’s the first time she does it to Dean, it’s part of a long theme of him feeling abandoned, with the Destiel arc offering up a dozen examples through the years we get that parallel in reverse now. It also means we can loosely parallel the deeper exploration of what Dean’s going through with Mary to how he feels about Cas leaving - again because they have such a different history, more of a compare and contrast and very easy to say it’s different because also of the difference between a mother and a love interest as well as because of their histories, if we feel like it.

In general with Destiel meta this season, I have written and reblogged a lot of individual posts per episode picking up smaller incidents and threads (my favourite is the eventual explanation someone hit on to the parallel of Asa Fox’s angel blade to Dean and Cas), but the other big one which I’m always harping on is the use of the Dean/Cas/Crowley love triangle (or, well, until season 12, it had been Cas/Dean/Crowley since season 9) just because of all the freakin’ baggage, and again, the show is still subtextually relying on that baggage as part of the storytelling. 

[These](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/Cas-n-crowley-roadtrip-2k16) [three](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/worst-ship-on-the-show/) [tags](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/Dean-x-Crowley-for-ts) would contain a lot of meta about this season near the top, for you to look at if you would like to read deeper, including at the top of the second one (for now) a much longer exploration I wrote about Dean/Cas/Crowley in 12x04/7 which is tangentially along the same lines as this in purpose, but I want to mention specifically that I am absolutely in love with this post:

<http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/154110590138/jilted-lover-dean>

for also bringing it right back to 9x06 - Berens has subverted that episode a couple of times now, upending it for different reasons, and when it comes to 9x06 and Berens, the subtext is rock solid. And when it comes to Berens and Drowley, it’s even more solid - he clearly loves writing Crowley, and was responsible for most of the mentions of the ship in season 11, keeping it afloat at least as something that couldn’t be ignored in Dean and Crowley’s history that they had the “bromance”. Using it against Destiel in a love triangle in whatever configuration has brought out brilliant subtext, and, Berens again, the pinnacle would be the 10x14 deleted scene which was just a slap fight between Cas and Crowley of literally accusing the other of being Dean’s boyfriend (now that WOULD have been textual :P)… 

One other thing that’s carried on over from season 11 in the subtext is a moment I loved that I feel is doubling down on an unspoken part of Dean and Cas’s unique, almost spiritual closeness that is the “profound bond” part of how they relate to each other (which you could very much argue is connected to the pining and Amara finding Dean through Cas etc as it’s from the same core place) is this parallel/link between them:

<http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/152356706003/quick-and-dirty-remake-of-this-gifset-with-the>

& much longer, ramblier post explaining it if you have time to read:

<http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/152353976198/no-more-myself-only-you-i-cant-help-but-think>

(and exploring my “Look at this effin table” tag at the bottom of either of those posts will also have more info on specific incidents especially as I wrote the long post for 11x02, and then the table was significant in 11x03)

Anyway, that thing, to me, to actually answer a little bit of your question about them acknowledging it, is directly following a deliberate thread of season 11 subtext into season 12 and continuing an arc, which, again maybe just to me, was told subtextually the entire time in 11, BUT of course came across much more openly because it involved a good chunk of Dean’s emotional energy in the season. So the fact that same story thread is being mirrored/repeated early in 11 is a very good sign to me, that there’s awareness of their past work, as it were. And that there’s emotional continuity between the seasons. Emotional continuity means all that Destiel is still important to the story.

And, (again to me), really, the kitchen thing and the Drowley love triangle thing are the 2 most important parts of the story for me for doing exactly what you fear they’re not, which is to carry on and continue/elaborate the work they’ve done so far. The show has a very strong language for its subtext and storytelling, and I think it does help/allow it to be much more obviously romantic to our eyes as soon as there is Dean and Cas interaction - building up a silent suggestion of pining in the in between episodes in season 11 without much work on Dean’s part at all, but in the language of the show, meant that when he hit maximum pine, it was sort of long-foretold and very very obvious, if you’d been reading the Destiel writing on the wall, what was going on.

Right now something like the pie symbolism relating to family and Mary coming around and slapping us in the face is something that has been in the show’s subtext for years and we’ve connected to this arc over and over before it ever happened. Now it’s here, it’s being told exactly as it should when it comes to pie and cake, in a way that despite being in a way the “first” time we’ve seen it all appear like this, since we’ve never had Mary to deal with in person, in a way is incredibly predictable. If you dig deep in my Dean vs cake tag you’ll find season TEN discussion of Dean and pie and the family symbolism of it all which is basically the RULEBOOK for what’s happening this season. 

In a way it’s the same as what happened in 11 with the pining, heart and handprint meta we’d all churned out in times of relative drought or lack of connecting ideas. Suddenly all these things returned in full force, and though we’d established many ideas from the show’s language before about these things, and the show played by those rules, we’d never seen them used like that before, in such a strong way, leading to Amara using the profound bond to connect a phone call to Dean down the longing retcon. So of course it all felt much more canon and textual because we knew exactly what we were looking for and had a full vocabulary to describe their interactions (meanwhile, Sam tries to have a vocab for it, telling Dean when he refuses pie it’s “sublimation” which makes this point even if it is debatable if he’s right or fully understands at a character level :P). 

Anyway, of season 11, yes, some parts looked objectively romantic, but I’m guessing if you wrote to me referencing the longing thing with Amara, then you read all the meta which means you had a skewed view of what was going on in canon influenced by our perspective which made this all seem so obvious that the subtext reading overwhelmed the offered “textual” reading. (And again, I think the romantic reading works better for season 11 anyway, so I’m not arguing against it doing this at all or saying this is a bad thing as we had an objectively better experience of the season as a result, even if it’s leading to disappointment this one :P) 

To me right now it’s happening much more quietly and underneath a larger emotional arc, but the beats with the Cas arc are doing pretty much what I hoped when it came to learning about Cas and Crowley working together and everything I’d have assumed about Dean’s reaction to it, so to me that feels (quietly) as canonically easy to read as ongoing Destiel storytelling as the Amara stuff did last season. Of course since at the moment we’re at the part of the story that requires Dean and Cas to be pissy about it because Dean is handling it badly and he’s at the part where he’s upset with Cas for leaving/working with Crowley, so on screen there seems to be little overt Destiel interaction. But as with last season, very little feels textual or easy to canonically acknowledge - the only thing textually I’d confidently say we have that can be presented upfront without much debate as easy analysis that doesn’t NEED the romo explanation but is improved by it a lot, is the Mary and Cas leaving parallel, and Crowley’s quip about Beyonce and Jay Z between him and Cas as blatant drawing lines in the love triangle, with Dean excluded (but you can read his behaviour as FEELING excluded… subtextually.)

Hopefully later in the season Dean and Cas get drawn together more or something flares up where these threads become much clearer as a romantic subplot, or a new one appears that we hadn’t even guessed of yet. But as we haven’t even hit the midseason crunch time yet, it’s very hard to guess what as this time last year we were similarly uncertain of where the romantic subplot might come from, if there was going to be one at all. I hate saying “wait and see” when it comes to interaction and Destiel subplots that skirt closer to being more obvious and textual, so I hope some explanation of what I see so far this season that means so much to me, along with that context of how I saw season 11, helps you.

(Sorry if this conclusion sort of circles around itself - I’ve just accidentally experimented with an entire week of sleep deprivation via the worst new bed ever and it’s made me a bit manic today since I hit the wall a few hours ago after being up since 5am :P Which we will also blame said manic-ness on how much I wrote…)


	9. Dean vs Queer Hunters - 12x06 edition

A quick thought on 12x06 (shared with [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) while I was trying to put words to this. So while I started this by being the one to lightbulb moment it, most of the, er, more coherent parts you can probably assume I got help with so assume joint credit) 

This mostly brought to you by the episode’s strong opening moments association to The Chitters leaving a lasting taste in my mouth, as it were.

When I got to Dean meeting Bucky and Randy, I was cheerfully just enjoying the episode, but I had… a few thoughts… about the assumption Dean makes here. Or doesn’t. Or kind of does but he isn’t judging.

When he’s talking to Bucky to start with, it’s one on one, but his names drags the whole table (blonde hunter AND that guy in the background included) into the conversation:

After Elvis legs it, despite there being another hunter at the table he was talking to, the conversation zeros in on just Bucky, who finally introduces himself, and Randy, who does likewise. 

(I liked Randy)

To which, Dean asks, “So are you two hunters?”

(this is all Mittens explaining it better)

> With the way Randy just immediately jumped into their conversation, [he introduces] himself like he was part of a unit with Bucky rather than just one of a bunch of random people who all happened to be in the kitchen then made the joke about the horns…
> 
> and then how Dean addressed them as if they were a unit…

What I’m thinking is… Now he knows it’s possible that hunters can settle down together, yes, even in kinda gay ways, and this is his first encounter with hunters since 11x19. Dean is sort of dealing with a world of hunters he never really encountered before. After the wendigo *takes a shot* story he apologises for not knowing “the rules” which was a very good little way to establish him as still essentially an outsider to their community. 

From the earlier conversation with Jody, we know Dean specifically blames John from keeping them away from it all. He could easily have assumed from their past interactions with older hunters (usually introduced to them through John or Bobby) that hunters at large even in the modern age were like John, but as several people were pointing out in meta after the episode, what we saw was a younger, queerer, lots of women, side of hunting, aka a slightly more balanced cross-section of regular people, not all gruff older (usually white although this still broadly applied to the party at large) men. 

Now that the "old generation” is mostly dead, aka the hunters they knew through John and people like Gordon and the dudes that forced Sam to drink demon blood, and the like - it’s left room for a new generation of younger hunters, who are more open-minded and inclusive, and who do interesting things like break the witch/hunter binary. Or indeed, not conform to the rigid outdated social norms around the intensely masculine environment hunting seemed to be in earlier seasons. Jesse and Cesar were just the start of Dean drastically re-evaluating his impression of their culture. 

 And this moment is especially interesting to me because Dean never learns Max is gay on screen? So for Dean, this is really it in this particular episode for possibly contemplating queerness in the hunting community, even if it’s ONLY contemplation. Of course he might not have assumed they’re married but I think he left room that they could be an item and not judge, in the sense of KNOWING it could be a possibility. Just the fact he indicates them together, and there’s a little show of closeness and familiarity between Bucky and Randy they give off even before it turns out they have a drinking game… 

After the awkwardness and ensuing revelation he went through misunderstanding Jesse and Cesar, it’s almost like, a once burned thing, not making that mistake again. 

Talking about them TOGETHER but not indicating HOW he thinks they are together leaves them room to define their relationship to Dean however they see fit to do it - and if there HAD been something there, well, Dean is prepared for that eventuality, and altogether the neutrality of this moment (and how there really ISN’T much to say about his reaction) speaks a lot about how okay he would be with it, and how he’s accepted this worldview of married hunter blokes being together as a possibility he may encounter.


	10. The Cas/Crowley/Dean love triangle stuff in 12x07 & 12x08

> **Anonymous**  asked:
> 
> Do you think the grumpiness/lack of positive scenes between Dean and Cas is intentional? I see a lot of meta how its about the love triangle or subtexually about Deans abandonment reinforced by Mary leaving etc and I think these are all valid interprations but im not sure if the writers intent it like that, especially since they write Dean as "he's always a little angry" and if its not their intention it means it likely wont be adressed and resolved then

* * *

I may sound a little broken record-y, but I swear I am still in the afterglow from the recaps of 12x07 & 8 :P Those things can be very reliable indicators of how they want us to read the story, specifically showing us the short version to get us up to speed, and if you read my watching notes I always disproportionately comment on them because I find them so interesting. 

12x07, the first thing you see in the entire episode is Dean in his priest outfit from 12x04 saying, “Cas is chumming it up with Crowley, they’re hunting Lucifer together” and out of context of the chat with Sam, the little soundbite sounds so weary and disappointed, as if announcing a huge betrayal despite the fact that was literally two years of your life right there, Dean. 

The visual cuts while he’s still talking to show Cas at the bar in 12x03, turning around mid-eyeroll, and then cut to Crowley smiling at him at the bar with his drink when he makes that Jay Z comment - since Dean’s still talking, we lack the dialogue there, but somehow without it it’s even worse. Crowley was hitting on Cas ANYWAY but without dialogue the visual of a sort of meet cute in a bar is still very obvious visual language, and reminds us that Crowley “picked Cas up” in a bar. Again, to the sound of Dean bitterly announcing they’re working together when this clip just shows them in close proximity and is not displaying “working with Crowley” in the way the next 2 clips of them doing the FBI thing at the door, or walking through the house all Scooby Doo together show a much more obvious definition of “working”. 

(The show has been coding “working together” as “dating” or even “marriage” for years - trying to think if there’s an earlier example than Crowley accusing Cas of cheating on Dean back in 6x20, but definitely in season 9 between Cas and Dean starting with 9x06 this becomes a thing - 8x08 was great but about TFW and subtextually competitive between Sam and Cas for the shotgun seat and all the Destiel is circumstantial/not about that… Anyway from 9x11 onwards Crowley took his turn at working with Dean and it literally WAS a seduction :P)

I mean, they MAY have just been using Dean as a good soundbite because of “one’s an angel, one’s a demon, and they solve crimes” but there were so many different things to montage there from 12x03 they did not have to set it up this way :P Even just letting Dean get to the end of his sentence, and then showing a little montage of Cas and Crowley working together to that snarky line rather than going back to Dean again (although, priest outfit, I can see why they returned to him :P) probably would have defused it a little, as the point is that Dean’s most jealous sounding line is layered over the romantically coded encounter between Cas and Crowley. 

It is also just making it “about” Dean - they could have introduced this in any number of ways, from a generic warning about Vincifer, to Cas and Crowley meeting up without Dean’s input via voice over. It’s a quippy show, they’d have found a soundbite. :P In this way, it’s introduced to us BY Dean through his concern/displeasure about it. By this time of year we’ve kind of forgotten but Dean and Cas started the season in a beautiful working together harmony. Remember when they rolled a car off the road together to hide a corpse? Poetry in motion :’) Dean’s grumpiness starts in 12x04 after Mary and Cas leave, and these 2 events are closely paralleled, stressing the importance of both leaving on Dean, and the opening of 12x04 is sure to deal with Dean’s reaction to both - Mary as a subject of the episode, just with Dean texting her, and as the dramatic conclusion to 12x03 it obviously seems to take emotional precedence. But we get to see Dean hearing the news and then reacting to it in real time about Cas and Crowley, and this piles further grumpiness onto his pre-existing mood. This clip is basically the start of Dean’s snit with Cas, and it makes very clear to show that he does not approve of this working relationship.

Meanwhile, 12x08 is much more a Buckleming recap - they have to include literally every plot event of the last century. BUT the recap had a good flow to it despite being bogglingly long, moving from the Vincifer recap to Cas saying “finding him is my responsibility” and Sam saying “you’re going to want some back up on this” to showing him with Rowena and Crowley & she’s telling him she’ll come when they need her (thereby establishing this is Cas’s “back up”). Oddly, THEN we have Dean’s agitated “Cas is chumming it up with Crowley - they’re hunting Lucifer. Together.” after he is already shown doing that, with a new clip, again of them walking through Vince’s cabin together like last recap, and it becomes clear this is not repeating the information they already told us with the last one when we have dialogue from 12x07 layered over that SAME clip, linking these ideas - “Feathers and I are all but inseparable”. Whoosh to Cas and Crowley standing side by side in LA as this soundbite finishes, and “togeeeether again~” “……………………………yay” and then the NOW card appears, making this our LAST thought of the recap, which is of similarly important weighting as the previous episode STARTING with the Dean/Cas/Crowley love triangle.

This builds up quickly from just showing us Cas’s responsibility to the moral sacrifice he makes to work with Crowley & Rowena, to an emphasis on him doing that as told to us by Dean, see above: jealousy written into the framing. Then it links Dean’s jealousy to Crowley specifically trying to rile that up by rubbing it in how close he and Cas are now: if 12x07′s recap was telling us that Dean was nervous of this arrangement on principle, 12x08′s answers with a “so you should be” and Crowley playing up the jealousy angle is now built into the mechanics of this love triangle that they are expressly recapping the character dynamics of for our benefit. The final note is Cas’s disappointment and sense of isolation from Dean as a result of that, with the “……….yay” shot still working its magic to show Cas trapped with Crowley, resentful of this dynamic and the fact that it has cut him off from Dean. 

Since the first interactions between any main characters in 12x08 is the morgue scene, which only served to show how these tensions are affecting them, and expressly showing more of Dean’s jealousy, Cas vindictively humouring Crowley when he doesn’t even LIKE working with him in front of Dean, and so on, the fact that it all looks like a lover’s spat is backed up by a narrative that the show has presented to us to try to explain what is going on. 

I mean, not everyone’s going to read ALL that subtext into it just from the recap, but when it comes to making sure that we’re supposed to think all this grumpiness comes from the bitter undercurrent of the love triangle this season? The recap does a LOT of good work, even if you’re just reading it as a more mild surface level resentment on all fronts that doesn’t include the romantic subtext between all three of them to the others at various points of the show (Cas to Crowley via Crowley’s mocking insinuations only, of course)… I do think this framing alone is a good argument that it’s intentional and a part of the story and not “just” anything about the way they’re currently interacting with each other. Whether they’ll resolve it or if it will just blow over when the shake up in the plot now means that this dynamic doesn’t have to carry on, remains to be seen, but at least when it comes to analysing the last stretch of episodes I’m 100% confident in this reading :)


	11. POV in 12x09

are you ever like, “I was only being flippant but now you’re disagreeing with me I’m going to defend this sandcastle with my life”? :P

[sam-winchester-admiration-league](http://sam-winchester-admiration-league.tumblr.com/) replied to your post“Do you know if there is going to more of Castiels past and flashbacks…”

> eh, 12x09 was actually about Sam and Dean. Mary and Cas just provided uber service.

Me, waving a plastic shovel from atop the battlements:

First of all -

  * The episode starts with Mary and Cas, apparently much more important to establish how they were doing because for some reason their emotional stake in the episode is probably going to mean something later
  * Sam and Dean are given  _literally_  nothing to do as their “here’s how you’ll spend this episode” before the title card. This scene is presented as an outside POV on the Winchester’s lives from the guy who runs the facility, being brought up to speed on their history in the horrifically biased way it looks to outside law enforcement agencies - we’re SO far from Sam and Dean’s perspective we’re looking at them from someone who doesn’t know why they’d desecrate graves, or if they’d be white supremacists or Muslim terrorists. This outside perspective on them in the prison continues with occasionally dropping back to see them with a little montage of them doing nothing. They’re viewed from above as if on CCTV in many shots, and from outside their doors, or talking about them in the room while they’re dead trying to figure out WTF just happened to them. This is the main POV the entire time they’re in prison despite some close ups on their time-passing activities.
  * the episode’s about what happens to their world when they’re not there - yes they sort of have their usual main character centre of the universe pull on the emotional stuff going on there, but the difference is that we’re seeing it from the eyes of characters who aren’t always the focus. It’s very clearly about giving another side, or exploring the effect of the main characters on the others. It’s important to remember Dabb co-wrote Weekend at Bobby’s - he knows what he’s doing when he writes an episode like this. It’s important to remember he  _likes_  writing episodes like this :P
  * Chow time! 
  * We get scenes with Crowley deciding they’ll be fine while Cas suffers. We get scenes where Cas suffers alone. We get scenes where Mary suffers alone. We find out the hunting community is missing Sam and Dean’s presence and suffering “alone” until Mary steps in. We get Mary seeing the picture of herself and Dean, which now seems to be something that’s been naturally building since 8x14 when Dean put the picture there, and the culminations of lots of DEAN-centred uses of that picture for emotional whammy, now flipped around and given to us from Mary. Literally taking a Dean thing and handing it to her, both with her taking Dean’s call, taking his hunt, and taking his emotional moment with the Mary and Dean photo.
  * We get a scene of Mary and Cas suffering together but still also oh so alone.
  * At some point off-screen Sam and Dean break under torture and make the deal - we have no idea they’ve done this, now effectively removing them as reliable POV narrators for the entire rest of the episode until the final five minutes. We are only ever going to be in the position of cameras watching their action and not emotionally interacting with them because we don’t know what’s going on.
  * it’s worth mentioning that there’s a whole scene which was Mary and Cas while the Winchesters were dead, aka completely taken out of the narrative; even if we all know Sam n Dean won’t stay dead because that’s just obvious at this point, Cas and Mary at that point are our “last standing” characters, and we’re continuing to get a very detailed emotional arc about how they feel, how they’re coping, how they’re beginning to forge a friendship out of this loss, and generally just giving us buckets and buckets of completely pointless angst for a pair of Uber drivers. In a world without Sam and Dean, Mary is bravely soldiering on, Cas is crumbling. They’re brought to their lowest point.
  * Dean finally phones Cas and though the phonecall is from his POV in terms of where the camera is sitting, emotionally we know he’s absent because we don’t know about the deal he’s made, Sam points out we don’t know about the deal, the scene reminds us there’s something we don’t know that Sam and Dean do but Dean did not tell Cas. 
  * Meanwhile, since Sam and Dean are having a mysterious but action-filled escape with no emotional hook except their escape (since they’re not allowed to have the conversation about the deal, we don’t know the deal, therefore any true emotional exploration of their escape is limited to comments about “midnight” which are only going to be any good on a second rewatch), because we’ve had at least 3-4 scenes of Cas openly, no-lies, just plain obviously missing Sam and Dean, the stress in that scene is that Cas has left his phone and isn’t answering but we want him to answer because he will discover his suffering is about to end. 
  * It’s not delayed gratification on Dean hearing Cas’s voice aside from the obvious weeks in prison thing (we don’t know Dean knows he’s dying in a few hours and therefore how MUCH more it means to him - we’re a step removed from his perspective on this phonecall and it’s nice to see him really want to call Cas, but the scene doesn’t overtly set up a real emotional hook on HIS side apart from the very pedestrian “Dean is trying to call an uber” sort of feeling I guess you got there if you don’t care about Destiel so I’ll take yours as the casual viewer version of that scene (just as I suppose I casually-view some stuff that might mean the world to you) because the whole escape is deliberately avoiding giving ANY emotional stakes to Sam and Dean - they don’t talk, there’s no real emotional discussions about anything, they don’t even comment about how nice it is to breathe fresh air, let alone get teary about seeing each other OR Dean calling Cas for the first time in ages - it’s all to business) so the emotional side of that is CLEARLY all on Cas, who has been waiting and mourning and visibly emotionally deteriorating all episode specifically because of the helplessness and misery of having lost them…
  * Sam and Dean continue running through the woods living out an action movie again, still not telling us their emotional stakes. So they’re being the main characters in another genre and while we’re rooting for them, it’s a side-quest, a way to clear up a little loose end of how do they get to the road without being caught, and an excuse to play, really, but it has no emotional weighting on the episode. In fact, because Mr Ketch goes and kills everyone anyway, it makes their whole effort even more pointless once we have full hindsight, and we also know about the deal which removes their emotional stake in winning that fight even further. It turns out they had even bigger things on their mind and it was just some action filler before we get to the real story. 
  * The end of the episode reminding us it was a framing device and Mick has been “telling” the story takes us a step even more removed once the episode is over and adds ANOTHER layer of Sam and Dean’s disconnect from the main story and POV. Like with Magda, they have no idea their efforts were for nothing but WE do. We as the viewer have a HUGE emotional advantage over Sam and Dean this season because of dramatic irony. It’s not like other times we get hints of what the villain is up to: they’re giving us plain and simple more information than Sam and Dean have, enough info that would DESTROY the current balance if they knew. So once again: by the end of the episode we are not WITH Sam and Dean on this side quest log cabin Home Alone thing at all. It was briefly for our entertainment, but we’re peering in on them with a huge disconnect in how we relate to them, because we are effectively stuck keeping a secret for Mick and Mr Ketch that we don’t even want to keep from Sam and Dean.  
  * Meanwhile Mary is shown mirroring Dean’s behaviour in various dark times likes the end of the Mark of Cain arc when he was killing off vampires to blow off steam. There’s something grimly reminiscent about Mary’s walk, the staging of the scene, the carelessness about leaving the dead body there… It all screams of Dean in his giving up stage, which again is an actual emotional piece of storytelling about Mary, layering her into the pre-existing imagery, comparing her to other emotional arcs, and telling us in no words whatsoever how she’s doing. We don’t see her fighting the vampire - it’s not like Sam and Dean running around in the woods providing the action. The important part here is how she FEELS. The emotional part of the story is with her. Finally Cas phones her and they’re all on the same page that the story will once more be “about” Sam and Dean. 
  * We still don’t know Sam and Dean have made a deal, or even that “midnight” is as urgent as it seems as it’s still being referenced in passing without the show playing up like, a countdown clock sound effect towards it or something. 
  * Cas and Mary on the other hand, discuss the good old “Winchester bad decision phonebook”. Do we call the king of hell? or make a deal with the new devils on our turf? This is what we missed with Sam and Dean talking to Billie - that and the scene where Mary and Cas meet Mr Ketch and Mick. The part where the emotional and hazardous stakes of making these deals are clear. They’re incurring more debt to these suspicious assholes in the nice coats, and we can be worried about what they’re doing (MARY seems worries about what they’re doing at that point) and basically all the POV stuff that comes with making a deal that we don’t know for sure we’re waiting for with Sam and Dean except for the “of course something is coming because there’s no free lunch” feeling - which is all they’ll let us have. Certainly no crushing weight of knowing what’s coming at midnight which could have in an episode ABOUT Sam and Dean been used to play up all that tension for a long run in the woods, while we don’t see Cas and Mary at all all episode until the end when they’re sprung on them like a reward, after Sam and Dean have angsted this six ways to Sunday before having to face their consequences
  * Anyway finally they meet and hug and the emotional POV is with Cas, getting these hugs but then looking towards Mary, and now we’re really building on his sense of isolation even from the family group which has been around all season… We’re left with him feeling sad while watching them hug and his isolation is meant to  be the take away from that scene, because we’re still building up the emotional stuff for the big reveal at the end
  * the car is quiet and we know there’s secrets yet to come. We don’t know what they are. We’re with Dean’s POV and he glances at Cas as the time comes. NOW it seems this might be about Sam and Dean.
  * The Uber driver gets out of the car when it stops, I guess because she wants to get moving again so she gets a good tip. Unfortunately there’s also a woman in the road and she might not get tipped if she runs her over.
  * The woman refuses to move out the road, and the uber driver is so overcome with emotion at not being able to finish driving her passengers home she attempts to commit suicide
  * the back up uber driver who came with her is so horrified by his co-worker’s loyalty to the job that he is inspired to also kill for the sake of getting their passengers home on time, and also to protect company resources by not letting the other driver kill herself
  * the passengers who made them drive down this sketchy road in the first place are basically passive horrified witnesses to the whole thing
  * the episode ends with the uber driver going to seek out a union or something to stop this shit happening again, ending the episode where it started as being all about her and her feelings.



second of all -

  * Mary Fucking Winchester is not an Uber Driver, she is a main character.
  * Castiel Fucking Winchester is a main character. Also probably not an uber driver although idk what he does between episodes sometimes so who knows.




	12. 100 yrs Ago Cas vs 8 Years Ago Cas

****

****

 

 **4x10**   **vs 12x10**

Lizbob Jones has some regrets about not noticing this one sooner, although tbh no regrets about making a giant gif of Cas flinching in horror at the little girl being murdered in case it would ever be handy because hey.

Anyway just struck me that I couldn’t remember anyone paralleling Uriel and Cas storming in to demand they hand over Anna to be murdered and Ishim and Cas & the rest of those angels storming up to Lily and Akobel’s place to, uh, enact divine judgement on their “wrongdoing” or whatever Ishim wanted them to think. (And as I said I skimmed my 4x10 tag and I’ve been furiously reblogging parallels in season 12 as fast as we find them so I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have skipped this one if I saw it before.)

> SAM  
> You want Anna? Why?
> 
> URIEL  
> Out of the way.
> 
> DEAN  
> Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, I know she’s wiretapping your angel chats or whatever, but it’s no reason to gank her.
> 
> URIEL  
> Don’t worry. I’ll kill her gentle.
> 
> DEAN  
> You’re some heartless sons of bitches, you know that?
> 
> CASTIEL  
> As a matter of fact, we are. And?
> 
> SAM  
> And? Anna’s an innocent girl.
> 
> CASTIEL  
> She is far from innocent.
> 
> SAM  
> What’s that supposed to mean?
> 
> URIEL  
> It means she’s worse than this abomination you’ve been screwing. Now give us the girl.

&

> AKOBEL: You have no business here.   
>   
> ISHIM: Me? You were sent here to observe humanity, to watch and to learn. But instead, taking up with a filthy animal. Have you no shame?   
>   
> AKOBEL: Who are you to lecture me about shame? Humans aren’t animals. Most of them are good and true and… How could anyone know them and not love them?   
>   
> ISHIM: Touching, but we’re not –   
>   
> AKOBEL: I know why you’re here.   
>   
> ISHIM: CASTIEL.   
>   
> CASTIEL. Akobel, Seraphim of the Sixth Choir, you have lain with a human and you fathered a Nephilim.   
>   
> AKOBEL: What?   
>   
> ISHIM: Continue.   
>   
> CASTIEL: You have broken our most sacred oath, and the penalty is…   
>   
> MIRABEL STABS AKOBEL.   
>   
> CASTIEL: …death. 

But then they kill the little girl and he flinches because, well, he’s not heartless. And never has been.


	13. Ishim Is A Total Douchebag (rape cw)

> **Anonymous**  asked:
> 
> There was a moment when Ishim throws cas down and then grabs at his clothes that I thought he was about to rape cas. My mind was just overwhelmed with fear but turns out the dude was just fixing his clothes. Haven't seen anyone mention it so I was wondering if it was only me that felt it? I felt so stupid afterwards. I don't think anything like that ever been on the show?

* * *

Oh, that must have been a horrible moment for you. I’m sorry >.> 

I know the moment you mean - it startled me quite a lot although I wasn’t sure why at the time, so that makes a bit more sense to me now of why I felt such a moment of panic too. I don’t think you’re stupid at all. There was something weird and charged about Ishim and Cas the whole time (and not in a good way). 

[answering referring to a few other times of coercion/assault centring around Cas so obviously do not read if you can’t hack it and I won’t blame anyone for skipping, but if it makes someone feel better to know they didn’t imagine this, then I explain basically everything I felt about it in great and painful depth so assume basically every paragraph may be potentially triggering and I don’t wanna hurt anyone >.>]

When they first meet again at the diner, it’s Ishim who says to Cas “I liked the old you better” which we know is referring to his female vessel (and Ishim clearly is one of the angels we’ve met with an interest in other people, and specifically human women - like Cas’s vessel.) When I first saw the bit where Ishim shows up at the house with his little squad of angels, it struck me that he was the only one with a male vessel (which when there were at least 3 male-identifying angels there, stands out all the more)…. right before the fight 2 more angels show up, in a male and female vessel each, so it’s a little more balanced, but my first instinct was a man with a flock of women behind him in period costume - it was a very domineering sort of position to put Ishim in (especially as one of them was a black woman) so imagining how they looked from an outside perspective of, say, a human passing them on the street, they’d assume Ishim was the man in charge of these women, and the authority figure to speak to (which, sadly, people still do >.>) And since he WAS in charge of the battalion it wasn’t even a fake out on the gender roles being played into there (knowingly, I assume, because Yockey is good at this :P)… Basically it was all a liiittle bit creepy to me and the more we found out about how creepy Ishim genuinely was, the more his choice of soldiers and their vessels got to me from how it looked. His words of “angel’s angel” followed me all episode because of how that is a play on “man’s man”

Anyway, Cas seemed to be the second in command, as Ishim deferred to him to tell him if everyone was there with them, and Cas seemed really happy to confirm that. 

[Originally posted by faramaiofnerdwoodforest](https://tmblr.co/ZUxPGj2H_l_oV)

This look in particular, aimed at Ishim, is, well, if Cas had no interest in Ishim then he’s still playing teacher’s pet, and to Mr Friendzone over there, I think he liked Cas’s loyalty/dedication/pride in the job/whatever because, well, we’re just assuming he’s the sort of dude who when someone looks at him like this with a pretty face… (and we know he’s into human ladies) is at least going to be misinterpreted as over-friendly.

(For what it’s worth obviously I don’t think Cas was into him at any point :P)

Then when we get to the bit where Cas is healing Ishim, Ishim is doing all that stretching out and posing on the sofa - 

This IMMEDIATELY pinged me as Cas and Meg in 8x17, just from Cas being left to heal/tend to someone who was on a sofa and he was sitting over them like this, because there’s just so few times Cas has played nurse rather than just healing someone immediately. 

They talk for the entire scene with Cas touching Ishim and leaning over him like this, slowly working on undoing enough of his clothes to get to the wound. (Incidentally on rewatching the scene where they all talk in the church before this one, Ishim is easily pulling up his clothes to inspect the wound for himself and the shirt isn’t tucked in, so it’s not at all about it being easier to get at the wound by undoing his clothes because Cas could just pull everything up and lay on hands immediately - it’s very specifically staged to show Cas undoing Ishim’s clothes like this.) 

(They even arranged the sofa cushions to give Ishim this very particular pose, where he’s got the cushion to prop him up, a bigger dip under his waist, which pushes up his hip to get the best “paint me like one of your french girls” pose)

It’s an incredibly intimate and suggestive moment (If you imagine a less horrible scene where Cas tended to Dean like this, I’m fairly sure a large chunk of the fandom would spontaneously combust). It’s also playing into power dynamics where Ishim is in control but playing up letting Cas tend him (to ~build trust~ as it were). It’s a literal power exchange though - Cas loses out and his power is sapped into Ishim, revealing who was in charge all along. But in this scene, Ishim is squirming around in the helpless damsel position and Cas is leaning over him like this with the power to heal him… The placing of the wound as well, mirrors Lily’s wound which she heals herself and it’s not treated suggestively at all, while when it comes to Ishim, Cas has to lift up a couple of layers (including undoing several buttons to get there) and then spends some time poking him and laying on hands. When he actually heals Ishim we get shots of Ishim’s face squirming on the sofa and grunting about whatever Cas is doing at waist height…

Of course in the Cas and Meg scene Meg directly propositions him, and there’s a history there of at least some uncertainty and interest and aggressive back and forth between them. Meg was, however, also painted repeatedly as someone who was abusive and would sexually assault the guys for fun - again, Ishim turns out to be one of the worst examples of “love” on the show - it was shown just as feeling entitled to Lily but of course that’s got plenty of subtext to paint him as a (potential) rapist by the time we get Lily’s side of the story. So Ishim’s grossness is reflected in the way this mirrors a scene with a character who is taken with very mixed reactions in fandom but at least for the first 6-7 years we knew her, was basically just a sign someone was about to get sexually assaulted. (And when she was playing nurse with Cas, that power imbalance horrified people for an obvious reason - 8x17 flipped that around a bit too by putting her in Cas’s hands… YMMV on redemption) Anyway, that scene makes me really uncomfortable (because my limits on Megstiel were reached around season 7 when it stopped being fun with Cas being the obvious winner after 5x10 and 6x10 :P) and I feel vaguely vindicated that the familiarity of this scene (also same director) played off the same discomfort I felt about Meg and Cas.

Anyway, after all that, Ishim makes Cas pick between himself and Dean, now mirroring 9x22 in the dialogue and set up fairly closely. In 9x22 Metatron set it up but Hannah delivered the ultimatum, another character who had been growing closer to Cas fighting alongside him, and would go on in the start of season 10 to realise she was growing some serious ikky human feelings for Cas (as she felt), proposition him (there’s a pattern here :P), this time butt naked followed by a kiss she stole… To be fair this kicked off the whole exploration of angels and vessels which was the real set up work for the glory we got in this episode, as without Hannah being the means this was explored in the story we wouldn’t have all the stuff that followed - everything from using vessels of different genders, to sharing how they feel inside, to relating to them as an actual person and caring enough to make decisions in the vessel’s favour… CLAIRE. And in this episode it all came back again. It’s obvious Yockey loves Cas, but it’s also clear the Hannah stuff really hit him too :P 

ANYWAY she was being romantically coded against Cas so 9x22 was also subtly a “me or him” (which at the time I think everyone was so panicky about Cas getting a love interest it was a bit dodgy to talk about because I don’t really remember anyone suggesting that Hannah and Dean were in competition for Cas’s attention except in a few jokes and memes and stuff… But she was giving him the eyes in 9x18 so it was always a part of their dynamic, Hannah’s massive one-sided crush). Now Ishim mirrored that same question for Cas, obviously putting him in the place where he might have what he thinks is a competitive stake against Dean, and Cas’s feelings for him. It’s never really about Heaven - he wanted Cas and Cas wouldn’t give him that love back again like it used to be, and so Ishim lashes out just like he lashed out against Lily, and Dean was in the way…

And of course in the fight that follows, Ishim is straddling Cas before he does that thing with his waistcoat, which mirrored the fight in 10x22, as Dean straddled Cas and was heaving him around by his collar and tie, but in this case it’s an immediate follow up from the sofa scene as well, because that put that huge sexual charge between them (from Ishim to Cas) and so if you saw that (even subconsciously) the straddling has this horrible sexual vibe to it to. I’m sure you could read that whole scene as a rape metaphor regardless. 

By the time Ishim gets up and is pulling at his clothes (which a couple of scenes ago we saw Cas touching and undoing himself) the association is there about them being undone as well as Ishim’s (by now clearly established as very violent and possessive) interest in Cas being obvious… Of course aside from the camera angle that puts him in this lopsided, dominant position as if we’re seeing it from Cas with Ishim standing over him, from the place of humiliated submission, and of course the visual of him tidying himself up AFTER something which got his clothes all askew which is one way to look at the fight as a rape metaphor (and leaving poor Cas unmoving and bloody on the floor) he clearly passes his hand over his belt as he lifts up his waistcoat, which makes it look for a second like he will instead start UNDOING clothes now he’s subdued Cas:

I mean, I flinched and it took me until you asked this question for me to even know why I did it >.> 

All that subtext is there and Ishim I think is definitely a rapist-coded character JUST for what he did to Lily (even if the baby wasn’t his either, just his entitlement to her says enough of what his intentions would be and we have to assume the worse about men like this. Using the excuse of a nephilim projects the idea that an angel HAD had sex with her and even if none of them did, it’s something Ishim clearly thought about >.>) and so obviously having all this stuff where he’s all over Cas creates really horrible connotations. The filming and their interactions were very charged and Ishim was shown to take emotional advantage of Cas by lying to him and using him even just in the flashbacks, never mind how horrible he was to him while playing a friend in the present. AND with all the seductive stuff at the sofa scene.

Basically, yeah, Ishim is rightfully someone to put at no1 on the people-who-hurt-Cas shitlist and he serves as a great example for shit to watch out for in douchey entitled men.

Be safe >.> 


	14. 2x20 vs 12x11 - have you been drinking?

##  [2x20 & 12x11](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/157194305908/2x20-12x11)

Don’t think we’re done by a LONG shot digging out references to past episodes in season 12 stuff but I have a new favourite comparison and it’s not just because of all the El Sol signs, or the passing reference to djinn :D 

I was thinking about how 12x11 emphasised several times the idea of Dean drinking as something being wrong with him as mirroring that little thread in 2x20 about his depressing alcoholic tendencies in that world. Especially with the woman at the start who pays Dean to go away assuming he is a drunk. Obviously in 2x20 Dean has “no memories” of his world because it’s all been made up - he has to discover for himself what his life is there. In both cases the people around him assume that his behaviour is the result of drunkenness, when he just does not know what it going on.

There’s also the dark turn the episodes take when it comes to - well, I’d have said Dean and his endlessly tragic priorities to be flippant if I hadn’t just watched Regarding Dean, but his core operating system of being a hunter and having to save people above everything else. 

In 2x20 Dean remembers that he is a hunter the entire time, but has a ~respite~ from it, thinking that the world has been re-written around his wish and that finally he is free of the job. His life seems a bit crap compared to what Sam has achieved, true, but his family is alive and well, and SAFE, and he feels he can rebuild with Sam and fix the loser!Dean he replaced’s life with lawn mowing and probably an aggressive re-friending campaign with Sam. As for his love life, he’s been handed respectable Carmen on a silver platter. 

But then his ghostly visions of the girl in white begin to intrude and Dean is faced with the discovery that all the things they ever hunted are still out there, but because they were’t hunting them, people died. This leads him to his most heartbreaking monologue on the show in my opinion, which I am guilty of quoting at least once a month for some reason or another but you can’t blame me when Jensen kills it every time with these things (as we know he is 10 years later):

> All of them. Everyone that you saved, everyone Sammy and I saved. They’re all dead. And there’s this woman, that’s haunting me. I don’t know why. I don’t know what the connection is, not yet anyway. It’s like my old life is, is coming after me or something. Like it like it doesn’t want me to be happy. Course I know what you’d say. Well, not the you that played softball but… “So go hunt the Djinn. He put you here, it can put you back. Your happiness for all those people’s lives, no contest. Right?” But why? Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero? What about us, huh? What, Mom’s not supposed to live her life, Sammy’s not supposed to get married? Why do we have to sacrifice everything, Dad? It’s… Yeah… 

While it’s on the surface far less tragic, both episodes come down to the fact that Dean is a hunter and has to save people - has to fight for the greater good. Even when he has no idea who he is, this instinct is hard-wired in him. Like with 12x11 and the emphatic note that Dean hadn’t been hexed yet when he rode Larry (sorry, need a light moment in here :P) it’s important to remember that Dean still doesn’t know it’s not a universe-altering wish, but only a dream. And yet despite that, he sneaks off to Mary’s house to get a weapon to fight the djinn and try to restore the universe to its “natural” state, where he is a hunter, always has been, hard-wired into his system, and everyone is alive. Similarly, Dean makes the trip from the car and its Alice In Wonderland notes about witch killing bullets to the house, with no idea what he’s doing, no idea what he’ll find there, but the same drive to hunt and save people that has always been his line motivating him to go. 

Both times, hugely telling moments about Dean’s true motivations and core character, and both times, utterly tragic as he has to “give up” a world he thought was safe and happy, or reject the idea that he’d have been any better happy and clueless about what he was. (And even when he was clueless, Rowena was happy to remind him he was a killer, and she or Sam pointed him at that house as the back up plan - something which has been haunting me since I watched the new episode about his use as an attack dog.)


	15. Seducing Dean - Ketch Edition

[Add link to season 2 gay panic & seduction by Gordon, Siren, & Crowley post]

I’d just like to add Ketch showing up at the Bunker with his bottle of scotch and all his apparent research on the Winchesters (and they know they pal around with demons :P) as an attempt to recreate this pattern - intentionally. In this case Dean was totally onto him and didn’t let him get through the cracks. And, in this case, Dean didn’t  _have_  any cracks that would make him vulnerable to what was  _basically_  the Gordon Walker seduction in slightly extended format if we throw in some of their earlier encounters with Ketch. I mean, Gordon even said hello to them by showing them the cool rack of guns and knives cleverly hidden in his car, while Ketch’s hello was look at all the cool toys the BMoL give me. 

I think the scene in the Bunker DOES play off these earlier versions but in a way where instead of strictly being about Dean and his ~inclinations~ though there was obviously plenty to talk about there because of that line and that it fits into the  _start_ of this pattern. But Dean is in a much better place about his family, no matter how there’s still SOME problems, they’re just not so bad that he needs to land on someone like this as a crutch - or value their opinion of him or what they have to say about the job/life/whatever. Ketch’s little try for Dean doesn’t work because even though he superficially seems to be a hell of a lot of tropes that turn Dean’s head, he’s overall better adjusted since the Mark of Cain stuff got resolved, and Amara got her peace.

… Now, how it worked on MARY on the other hand :P

... The entire reason I was here was because I was reminded of the gay panic series of posts I did, about season 2 and 11 [(linking 11, season 2 linked in it somewhere](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/147765511673/ive-been-seeing-arguing-about-the-siren-episode)) so part of the point of this not working on Dean is that he’s so much more comfortable with himself and nothing’s torn that down lately? He rode Larry while at least in possession of his sense of self, if slightly addled with tequila :P 

12x15 came right after the Ketch thing and showed how comfortable he was with Crowley and their history; that they could acknowledge it had happened and honestly Dean’s discomfort mostly seems to come - presented humorously - as because of sleeping with the enemy, especially as he uses the example of working with Crowley as one of the people they don’t like or trust but work with anyway, at the end of the episode, and that point is made again in the recap of either 12x16 or 12x17 using footage of Dean n Crowley in 12x15. His issue is obviously way more with that Crowley is not a  _good_  person to have hooked up with, than the fact they have a sexual history. 

(The season 11 gay panic post goes over Crowley as the cause of it - with the deleted 10x23 scene between them, I’d say Dean starts at a flat 0 of self-acceptance so 11x23 is pretty impressive development (I think caused by having to deal with Amara and the context of months of losing Cas again), and we’ve stuck with it :P)

Anyway, 4x14 especially shows the danger that the siren gets through the cracks - that Dean didn’t expect a male siren, but now he knows sirens are “not all hot chicks” and they’re an easy fight now, according to 12x15, and clearly don’t come with the sort of mind fuckery that Nick got to him with. Dean knows himself much better and the links back to all this old stuff where it hurt him one way or the other, don’t happen in similar situations. Ketch didn’t rattle him an  _inch_  with the ~inclinations~ suggestion.


	16. How much do we trust these offers?

****

**12x14 & 12x15**

I got an anon about this like halfway through the hiatus that I responded to like, yes right after 12x15 I meant to make this gifset. Ooops. I also have a whole bunch of anons I thought may or may not have been indirectly answered by other stuff on my blog but were all asking about what was going to happen to Cas, and I haven’t been able to put words to it the entire month.

Anyway these gifs after the first 2 are in no particular order or chosen to be a side by side, but  _possibly_  chronological because my gif-collecting was a haphazard mess. But the last ones are definitely “you’re a killer” and “btw Joshua” reaction shots, and I think are where Ketch and Kelvin played their cards. 

Obviously both then go with their respective offer to see what it’s all about, but my hope/assumption/tentative speculation is that this is a fairly direct parallel, based on how these two are in general with their story arcs, and also after rewatching a little chunk of season 12 I realised just how many small moments are repeated between characters, in fairly direct ways, and this is hopefully just a version where we’ve been left hanging on Cas’s side for the equivalent of the hotel scene with Dean and Ketch, to be picked up again later.

Of course Dean also then the next episode has his arm twisted to work with the BMoL anyway, at least on his terms, and Cas going along with Kelvin can crunch this parallel down into him working with Heaven in probably similar ways to Dean and the BMoL, we’ll hopefully see how that goes tonight in a way which will give us a lot of material to speculate/understand things. 

But at least these two conversations side by side, when you watch these episodes back to back, offer a pretty clear suggestion that, structurally, we have this parallel of Cas to Dean’s unsuccessful career day pitch from Ketch, and Cas is NOT ET-ing back home like he threatened to in 8x23, which seemed to be a few people’s fear… and honestly I’m still not sure what all the various main thoughts are on that still. Maybe everyone’s been waiting and doesn’t know what to make of it yet.


	17. Mick And The Shoulders Of Trust

To the surprise of probably no one my main obsession with anything that happened in 12x16 is the shoulder thing. And again, the whole WRONG shoulder thing. Since I had old gifs of 11x11 lying around and that caused a Mass Panic about the whole wrong shoulder, pal, thing going on there… This time, it’s the right shoulder (uh, that is, the left one) but Dean’s doing it himself to the Dark Cas Mirror of the moment.

([Here’s the detailed catch up on this all](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/Dean%27s+elbow+fetish+for+ts/chrono/page/3) when it comes to Casifer and probably many pages of yelling about how Lucifer getting the wrong shoulder was so symbolically awful and probably a great deal of the reason Dean thought something was up with Cas at the end of that episode etc etc old season 11 flailing, preserved in amber)

I’m mostly just so emotional about what this says AGAIN about Dean and Cas and about how Cas is such a GOOD part of his life. Using this symbol of their relationship (shoulder grabbing with intent - aka many times they manhandle each other in huge important moments or choose shoulder touches to communicate physically) and applying it in this case to Mick, where he has his “handprint” on his shoulder - the great big monstrous scratch - of all the handprints we collected over the tail end of Carver era, the least like it VISUALLY:

But obviously it holds the truth of what Mick did to Hayden, and Dean uses it to force the truth out, cutting through the lies and bullshit he’s been dealing with all day. No amount of claiming to write reports or watch GBBO is going to get Mick out of this one… He has to forcibly manhandle it out of him, and it’s not a positive connection in the way Dean and Cas share the shoulder thing, just as in 11x11 the moment was a way to convey just how wrong it all was. That gets him to spew a ton of other lines about doing what he had to do and following orders, which is repeating a ton of other lines but to me in feeling, somehow came closest to 4x22 and THAT shoulder-grabby manhandling moment but where Cas decided to rebel and unceremoniously announced it by grabbing Dean and hauling him around, before defying the orders, and doing what he had to do genuinely for the greater good, and not in the self-serving way Mick does. The fact it turned into “self defence” (Although he was already about to inject the silver nitrate into her IV when she turned) gave him a whiny little grey area to cling to that strictly speaking ignoring ALL the context, in the exact moment he killed her it had been to save his own life (and thinking of werewolves I’m just remembering the last time we had a “did what I had to do” with Hipster Werewolf who thought he killed Sam in 11x17…)

But, I guess, it really is just that simple to me that it’s mirroring Dean and Cas’s dynamic, but obviously it’s wrong and reversed and then showing through the use of an AWFUL mirrored scenario with a Cas/Cas mirror that’s just all bad and wrong, that Dean and Cas and their language of shoulder grabbing is the good relationship in comparison - and you can even take that in a non shippy way, just that it makes absolutely clear which dynamic is better and that we are seeing a corrupted version of it on screen.

And I think in this case it’s really where I realised that I had stopped speculating if Mick would really ever get a redemption worth mentioning (the other thing being that he ends the episode on the painful dramatic irony that he’s on a second chance, but the flashbacks in this very conversation about Magda show very, very clearly that he blew the second chance before they ever started working together and so they’re now working on a lie/betrayal waiting to happen that’s no longer abstract but structurally Mick is perched on top of a very precarious Jenga tower that’s 1 brick from collapse).

For one thing, Dean’s doing the grabbing instead, and the shoulder thing is on the Cas mirror’s side. He’s having to hold him accountable and wring the truth out, while Cas in the season 4 parallel was shown almost immediately to care and to have doubts about his orders, and as early as 4x07 on Dean’s side, and to match up their journeys by equivalent length of the season, 12x16 sits on top of 4x16 and it is absolutely no competition who came furthest with confronting their orders and the bullshit from the higher ups between Cas and Mick :P 

I also think that Dean is giving Mick a chance to come clean about everything here, at least, in the sense that Dean might not know it but the writing DOES because even without the flashbacks he innocently brings up Magda, assuming she’s living a happy life wherever they sent her, and Mick fails to tell the whole truth there. Mick isn’t strictly brainwashed as far as we know, just holds his orders and higher ups and beliefs to a high standard, because he’s been educated and thinks he knows better, rather than, as Dean says, dealing with each case as it comes with hands on experience and making the judgement calls. Mick stands his ground here, in the sense that he doesn’t challenge his thoughts that killing Magda was hideously wrong, and confess while they’re there and get it over and done with. 

As a dark mirror to Cas I think this is really how it should be - he’s complex and I think in some ways still genuinely believes he’s helping, just these are the compromises he makes, and I think he had genuine motivations to go along on the case. Just that his behaviour once they were there did not live up to the Winchesters’ standards of compassion. And, of course, the 8x08 parallel stands too - Cas’s compassion helped even on the smaller details, such as listening to Mrs Tate about her stolen jewellery, while Mick acts compassionate to Hayden while inspecting her for wounds but decides he has to kill her in the same scene, and his solution for Claire is restraining and sedating her for his own protection, not what would be best for her. Of course then the “real” monster bursts in and knocks her out and ties her up. Hmmm. 

Anyway, this all reflects on Cas kindly, but I think is really to make Mick look so much worse in comparison - that we see him being Cas-esque, treading superficially similar ground and looking a LOT like him, but everything he does is like a reversal of what Cas would do - such as swooping smoothly in as the doctor when the Winchesters fail to get access, in reverse to Cas doing the whole “WHY DID YOU KILL YOUR HUSBAND” thing and needing to be dragged into time out by Dean while Sam handled it more sensitively. It’s playing off how Cas is GOOD and RIGHT.

Which leads back to the shoulder thing and again how it’s using something from Dean and Cas’s dynamic, something that’s very specially theirs since before they even officially met on screen, and if you’re bored enough to scroll my entire elbow tag, has a huge weight across the show either in handprint imagery or shoulder touching stuff. Last season it was corrupted with Casifer, and this season it’s not so much that it’s corrupted because Dean n Cas are fine, and probably the best they’ve ever been in general, emotionally, but now they get to be the great positive example of a relationship to hold up others to, and to show in a moment like this, how  _bad_  something else is in comparison. In this case, tied up in revealing lies, and how Mick has absolutely failed to be like Cas in spirit, even if in many ways he’s treading similar ground. 

A messed up shoulder grab here means pretty much the exact same thing as the Casifer one, even if all the details are shaken up -  _this_  situation is bad. Dean and Cas, though? Perfect.


	18. Dean And The Colt or he did kind of turn into Gollum about it

**Anonymous**  asked:

Do you think we were supposed to be getting MOC!Dean vibes from how excited Dean was to have the Colt back? I mean, he got pissy when the First Blade was taken from him to, though he ultimately ended up giving that to Cas, but y'know... willingly. Idk where I'm going with this, just something I thought of...

Yeah, idk if it was meant to be exactly like Dean and the First Blade but he was definitely being a bit obsessive about it :P Once you sleep with something under your pillow you cross a line where if this was the sitcom version of the show the next day he’d walk into the library and Sam and Cas would have hung an intervention banner :P 

I mean I don’t think we need to go over Dean’s detailed history with the Colt, either in actions or emotionally how much was connected to it and the obvious security a kill-anything weapon has to your well-being (a rare feeling for him although 12x18 proved that could be preeetty useless when not applied properly anyway)… but he was also personifying the gun and he does this with the car and I guess in a way it’s stuff he puts a bit of himself into. 

(I watched 9x10 recently enough to still be laughing at Crowley calling the car Dean’s phallus on wheels - I don’t think that’s an accurate representation of what Baby is to Dean, and 11x04 showing her as a protective womb and somehow almost cosmically attuned to him as a friend is way more accurate, if we don’t go with her being a representation of his soul. But hands down she is feminine and not just because he calls her so, but symbolically. But the Colt. Definitely a phallic representation for Dean.)

But his weirdness about the gun got him in trouble in 12x18, that the bad guys got the better of him, and, well, the dude in 5x09 who complained why do they not put their weapons on a bungee? Highlights the problem of relying on a kill-anything weapon (and pfft now I think about it like this - WAS that foreshadowing that they gain and lose the Colt in one episode immediately after that because Dean dropped it after Lucifer threw him across the field? :P)

I think the problem is this is such a coveted item, it’s its own curse. And I just spent a moment trying to think of what other thing in pop culture I could compare this to aside from the obvious of the One Ring and realised I was thinking of season 3 and the Colt. So. Uh. I feel like there’s a very obvious comparison to some item that was only got through stealing and was its own curse but my brain is ALSO now just saying, hey, rabbit’s foot in 3x03, and at this point I give up. My brain is a mess of Supernatural and I can’t remember anything else any more. 

Anyway, it’s not something spelled out in the text like that, but right before the Colt comes back into play, like bungee guy and his warning about losing weapons, we have this:

> SAM   
> It’s a hell of a luck charm.
> 
> BOBBY   
> It’s not a luck charm, it’s a curse! She made it to kill people, Sam!  
> See, you touch it, you own it. You own it, sure, you get a run of good luck to beat the Devil.  
> But, you lose it, that luck turns. It turns so bad that you’re dead inside a week.
> 
> SAM   
> Well, so I won’t lose it, Bobby.
> 
> BOBBY   
> EVERYBODY LOSES IT!

(Lol to “beat the devil” I hate this show sometimes)

Obviously Colt didn’t make it AS a curse - he made it to kill demons and lock a Devil’s gate shut… But from the outset it has the problem that because it can LOCK the gate it can also OPEN it. So the very earliest we see the Colt is two demons coming to get it from Samuel Colt; it’s a beacon of potential and Colt may have used it for good, but there’s an immediate reaction of interest to use it for bad, because it’s power, and power, of course, corrupts. (Like the ring of power, or the First Blade comparison, as two items specifically about the corrupting influence of dark bad power) 

But still. Once it’s there…

> SAMUEL COLT   
> (nods) Not bad. (Samuel opens his jacket so Sam can see the colt in his holster) You don’t want it. It’s a curse. Believe me.
> 
> SAM   
> Great. Then let me take it off your hands.

Sam actually is given the Colt (and that scene now to me feels like 9x11 riffed off it a LOT - Dean taking the Mark from Cain feels almost identical in mood, only Sam taking on this “curse” was a lot more benign, unless of course it somehow twists time and fate up to make the Colt so much of their problem in the future). Anyway, he takes it to Dean seemingly with permission and no hard feelings from Samuel Colt, and so it’s sort of got a sense of ownership to them, but not exactly the strongest, especially as it may have just been on loan.

Best I can guess, based on the Elkins connection, after they disappeared back to the future, Elkins the bartender came out and saw the ash and had no interest in it, but did see the Colt and took it, then when Samuel Colt came to town it was like no i never saw no gun, and Colt assumes Sam took it (and hey he did want to pass on that curse :P) and that’s it. Elkins passes it down through his family, Daniel Elkins sort of can’t believe what he’s got, and maybe for all we know was a hunter because having the Colt invites trouble and his family had a history of it and had to learn the hard way.

Dean steals the Colt from him in 4x03, and fails to use it while discovering how their family is well and truly cursed with Mary’s deal. 

John wanted it from Daniel Elkins and never got it from him while he was alive because I bet Elkins did not want to share that curse and had some fear about what it would do to John - the Elkins family having it is sort of like Bilbo having it all the time in the shire - he messes around doing party tricks with his magic ring, but the plot doesn’t come for HIM. 

Vampires eventually steal it, John steals it from them, he gives it again to Dean, but retains a loose ownership of being the one who’d be mad about wasting bullets, even if Sam and Dean wave it around and shoot it a few times, John reclaims it and gives it to Azazel. Azazel gives it to Jake. Sam steals it from Jake, Bela steals it from Sam, gives it to Crowley who gives it to Dean, and then immediately steals it back from him and gives it to Ramiel. Ramiel is killed for it by Sam (unintentionally) and Mary steals it, for Mick who gives it to Sam, who gives it to Dean, who Cas steals it from, who loses it to Dagon, who melts it and the poor ghost of Samuel Colt, haunting miles of railroad in the middle of Wyoming, suddenly has his spirit freed and goes up to Heaven at long last like,  _finally_  :P 

Pretty much everyone who either steals it or has it stolen from them is killed for it or because of this struggle - losing it is a safer way to not die, so Dean dropping it at the end of 2 time travel escapades, or after attempting to kill Lucifer, sort of means the gun falls off the radar, in a kind of threw it into the deepest ocean way, where it stops being on the board. But the curse is clear and the power struggle for it. 

I think this sort of desirability of it as an item IS the curse, and Dean is best placed of anyone in the world to know about it because he’s been not just connected to the story all along, but also with the time travel things, especially 4x03, intimately connected with its  history in a really weird way. He was the one who shot the phoenix, after all, even if Sam got the Colt in the first place. Dean being the last “true” owner of the Colt is a nice way to end it, in that Dean is the centre of the universe way. But also that Sam brought it to him and Mary stole it for them - the family history, the family curse… (I still think Samuel Colt’s journal was in the Campbell library because there was a family connection)

Also it’s great Cas stole it and shot it and had a part in that - also mirroring Eileen’s attempt to shoot Dagon, which makes me feel like she’s part of the family and should marry Sam >.>

ANYWAY all that said, I think that’s the curse/pull of the Colt, the sort of “my precious” feeling that would come from it. It’s an object soaked in blood and in the supernatural world that seems to leave a mark. I think the gun was actually almost bonded to their story or to Dean, and he would have the Gollum-like intensity over it because it’s been his for hundreds of years all through its existence, in the “i’m my own grandfather” way time travel messes with things. And I think that it wasn’t EVIL per say but the “curse” had a truth to it that Samuel Colt couldn’t even begin to understand what he’d created, and what it would become. And all the people who died for it - all that power and all that swapping hands? If ownership puts a bit of something into a thing like Dean personifying Baby until she looks out for him in turn like 11x04 showed, then think of the gun going through all those hands, and all the evil or desperation they poured into it while coveting its power.

I don’t think it necessarily drove Dean mad in the way if we had a longer arc with it it MIGHT have Gollum’d him like the First Blade did but for the 3 episodes he owned it, it definitely seemed like a danger and I think this is why he was susceptible to it. I think 12x18 in a way might be a great thing to rewatch for Dean and the Colt - how it influenced him in that time, that he was sloppy and filled with bravado… I said in my notes for that episode that he was happily waving his phallic gun around that represented a sort of power and therefore virility he doesn’t normally feel - a GOOD feeling about himself, self-confidence and self-assuredness, and so Dean hooking up felt a natural part of exercising that power. But it made him reckless and vulnerable and so he ended up being the damsel tied to the chair and thrown in a meat locker. Sam, who had a tearful reunion with the Colt and saw it in a completely opposite light to Dean, as a dangerous, cursed tool, as Samuel Colt said and Sam knows full well, had a clarity about it.

I think if Sam kept the Colt Cas probably wouldn’t have stolen it, and the Colt would still be un-melted, because a totally different story would have been told.

But it got to Dean. It probably wouldn’t have CHANGED him long term, but the immediate personality effect was all over 12x18 and it suddenly filled a huge part of the emotional drama of 12x19 where Cas stealing it became a Cas or Colt situation and they were weirdly paralleled closely together (as well as that weird sexual side to Dean owning the Colt that 12x18 explored, being used with the Colt being in his bed, and Cas stealing it from there…) - if it had been some other McGuffin and not The Colt with all its history I think Dean also would have been a lot more chill in 12x19, and not be betrayed, and not waver even for a second to seem like he was messed up enough to be weighing the worth of the Colt against Cas in the first place. 

I don’t think if the Colt hadn’t been melted it would have had a long term affect on their relationship even if Dean would have been upset about Cas taking it…

I am still wondering if they’ll develop that Cas nearly died FOR Mary to steal it and if Dean would ever clearly be made aware that the BMoL stole it from Ramiel and that’s why they were there and what Mary was doing.

I want more on the cursed family history and whether they mention the Colt or not in that, it just existing for a moment in this season has dragged up more than enough of that…

Okay I have way too many thoughts about this ask I went way off point with. 

But yeah, I don’t think the Colt ACTUALLY would have been like the Mark of Cain and First Blade to Dean, but metaphorically that’s the emotional impact it had, with the family history and HIS history with it being the Mark, and the Colt of course being the Blade.

* * *

 

[I still can't believe the Colt was in his bed and Cas stole it from there](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/I-still-can%27t-believe-the-Colt-was-in-his-bed-and-Cas-stole-it-from-there)[when I was watching I snorted about Cas moodily looking at Dean's bed when he left the room](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/when-I-was-watching-I-snorted-about-Cas-moodily-looking-at-Dean%27s-bed-when-he-left-the-room)[and it turned out he really was coveting Dean's phallic representation in Dean's own bed](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/and-it-turned-out-he-really-was-coveting-Dean%27s-phallic-representation-in-Dean%27s-own-bed)[and Dean's betrayal was that Cas emotionally used him and took that from him](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/and-Dean%27s-betrayal-was-that-Cas-emotionally-used-him-and-took-that-from-him)[not that he just stole the item](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/not-that-he-just-stole-the-item)[but the absolute literal this is about actual sex in my own bed intimacy that was portrayed there](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/but-the-absolute-literal-this-is-about-actual-sex-in-my-own-bed-intimacy-that-was-portrayed-there)[metaphorically this is why Dean was upset](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/metaphorically-this-is-why-Dean-was-upset) [Cas had a one night stand and bolted](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/Cas-had-a-one-night-stand-and-bolted)[this is what the Colt stood for in Dean's bed](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-what-the-Colt-stood-for-in-Dean%27s-bed) [to be completely clear about that](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/to-be-completely-clear-about-that)


	19. 12x19 vs 9x14 - Berens Asks Cas To State His Priorities

my mum and i watched 9x14 over dinner (and 9x16 because she’s slacking off but that’s by the by) and aaargh catching up with Berens down in season 9 messing around with Cas. 

Bartholomew has the role of Heaven, tempting Cas with the power and resources to find Metatron, which of course is just the reason that year for Cas’s character development as Kelly and Dagon are this year… 

Hearing how uncertain it all is when Cas is at the beginning of this arc - with Bartholomew asking Cas what’s out there for him with a weighty pause, and it all being so much more complicated with Cas and Heaven. He still feels deeply connected to them - has a personal history with Bartholomew, has a strong impulse to fix Heaven and to help the angels, which makes the pull between them and the Winchesters an unfair balance… 

Just knowing that when he’s in this apparent spot in 12x19 when Kelvin tries the same thing on him, Cas has an immediate, certain answer of no, I’m just using your resources to get what I want, and what I want is to protect the Winchesters. Showing that he’s made his choice and he knows what he’s doing. 

I don’t think the episodes are really direct mirrors to each other, but it was just really nice to immediately watch something from the beginning of the arc by one of the same writers from where we currently are, and see how raw and unformed all of this is for Cas, just to really appreciate how far he’s gone since then. 

Because they ARE working through these arcs and making progress and it’s not more of the same. Cas has changed, and learned, and been through so much, and all the stuff that back in season 9 was just speculation and wishful thinking his arc would go that way, has now ended up where it actually has gone. Cas has visibly moved ahead, answering some of these questions that were once posed to him… 

Sometimes I think there’s a feeling I see in fandom that the show is going in stagnant loops and things are never going to change, but I really feel like the characters are dynamic and completely malleable, and always moving onwards - sometimes in bad ways, but also in good, and learning and drawing on their history. And the ways we identify that they have to change, or the things they need to accept or understand to be happier, do come to them.

Sure Cas is in a bad place and made bad decisions, and who knows what is up with him now exactly in so many words, but his inner world is completely transformed since season 9, and set backs for drama aside, it’s a great trajectory.


	20. Dean Worries About Cas, 12x20 edition

Actually joking aside I’ve remembered I was wondering if anyone else would post this parallel but I haven’t seen it now I’ve looked at more of my dash post-12x20, and[ my watching notes](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/160349267153/12x20-watching-notes-reblog-if) are a really boring place to keep it..

> Okay so there was stuff I didn’t say last night but wanted to about the scene opening with Dean’s hands after the title card. I thought it might be the opening but I wasn’t totally sure, and if they used it as a reaction shot that would have been even worse in a way. But we start with Dean wringing his hands, or nervously self-soothing by stroking the knuckles of one hand with the other… We leap right into the middle of a conversation with him and Sam about what Cas did, and Dean’s hurt but defending Cas as not being Cas and his decisions being, well, exactly as we all said. Manipulated because the complete turn around on his faith and idea of the nephilim is just too much to credit for being Cas. Dean heard Cas say he has faith and if ANYONE knows how Cas feels about faith, it’s Dean, because over 5x16/17 but all of season 5 up to that point in a way as well, they dealt with a joint storyline about faith, and had it shattered together in 5x16, before the conversation in 5x17 about their fathers which is the key Destiel scene in season 5, really.

> And it starts with [this](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D99%26pid%3D47788%23top_display_media&t=Y2UwYTM0ZjM5ZjE4YTY4YjllZDBjMmRhZWZmZmQ4MTBkODQ2ZTk3MyxMb3BGZG5XaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160349267153%2F12x20-watching-notes-reblog-if&m=1):

> and now we have

> And of course this shattering was because of what Joshua said - who is now dead and aside from serving as an example of not marrying your speculation because this is season 12 and Dabb’s steering the ship like Willy Wonka taking us into the chocolate river tunnel on the candy boat, he is representative of ALL this stuff about faith that happened with Cas and formed his whole arc, to the point of cold shouldering God at the end of the universe, to repeat myself from doing this last week. Now Dean is mirroring this exact position Cas sat in, which I have to feel serves as a tie back to that moment, if only to show it’s part of this story - that Cas had that moment, that Dean witnessed it, bonded with him, tied their lives together over it, and it was a human moment for the both of them in the middle of all the epic apocalypse level shit. Lucifer and armageddon is too much to handle, but absent fathers? Dean knows how to be sympathetic about that :P And so he’s got that human moment tying him to Cas’s faith arc, which has not substantially changed since it broke back in season 5, except that he’s explored his hopelessness and lack of faith from a whole lot of different angles, from trying to be god, to being a human sitting in a church questioning, or trying to pray and feeling disconnected and miserable about it, to refusing to engage with God when he returned.
> 
> And for Dean in this moment, mirroring to all that aside, shows how deeply he’s involved in Cas’s side of this argument that he’s not able to represent himself so Dean will speak for him, Dean’s feeling hurt and miserable and needing to self soothe. Like 12x18 opening on Cas’s answerphone and Dean worrying about him, the first thing on screen is an emotional close up of Dean’s hands, his reaction to what Cas did, and basically Destiel immediately into your eyeballs on the word “go”. This close up without words really says EVERYTHING about Dean’s position in this conversation…


	21. 1x01 to 12x22: It’s All In The Chair

While I’m here, thinking about 2x20, this can’t possibly be the first time someone’s noticed it, since, you know, 10 years ago etc, but I have just realised looking up these lines:

[http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=1.01_Pilot#Trivia_.26_References](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D1.01_Pilot%23Trivia_.26_References&t=MDUzZmYyNWFiMGU1ZWZjZWIxYzYyNjE5Yjc3NjgzM2RiZTBkYmZhMSxzT2ZjSHdnQw%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F161599591678%2Fkayanem-elizabethrobertajones-while-im&m=1)

that 2x20 is one of the earliest episodes to really riff off of 1x01 (and I’m sure my tag for the Pilot is FULL of references to other episodes, because it sets up the whole circular nature of the show and layers of mirrors etc and as such is a great thing for the writing to return to again and again as it loops around and around)… the Sam n Dean fight in the dark is especially one of those moments where the staging is almost identical except for the obvious changes. But these lines bother me becaue they make me realise for the first time that Dean accidentally-deliberately turned himself into JOHN in his wishverse.

The accusation comes twice in short succession from Sam that John is off drinking. I don’t think Sam’s 100% dedicated to the idea because once Jess is gone they walk out the building with Sam listing off all the times John disappeared but was actually fine, but he does use John and alcoholism as a cover for his behaviour in front of her and as a way to tell Dean in coded talk that he thinks John is fine. Of course in 2x20 Dean is constantly being accused of drinking with the suspicion of people who think it might be quite likely, plus a few random bystanders thrown in for good measure to hammer the idea home.

And of course Dean picks being a mechanic in the dream as his civilian job, something we already knew from at least 1x09 was John’s old job before everything happened. 

Edit: And Sam mentions John melted the silver, specifically that Dean probably stole that exact same silver to use as a weapon in 2x20…

It’s all just making me think a lot about my favourite early seasons theme of John putting the burden on Dean of the job, and Dean’s lack of identity outside of following directly in John’s footsteps etc. It’s like, in 2x20 once that burden is temporarily lifted and Dean attempts to imagine an identity outside of being a hunter, he finds himself pouring his self-image into the model of what John was like - John, who in the opening scenes, is asleep, probably drunk, in that chair in front of the TV (and I think it is screamingly significant Dean woke up in it in 12x22 before he drops all these burdens) and of course is still a civilian and mechanic at that point… 2x20 is a little ways before 3x10 and Dean and demon!Dean shouting at each other about Dean’s self-worth and how he had modelled himself after John, but suddenly seeing it like this, it’s a really stark image of how Dean literally can’t imagine himself, at this point, outside the lines that John drew, and the ones Dean uses to dictate who he is supposed to be.

> * * *
> 
>  [kayanem](http://kayanem.tumblr.com/post/161599440164)

> So is this resolved before S12, or … ?
> 
> The ghost of John Winchester was a undercurrent right through S12, and without trying to make this too Oedipal, I think there’s a sense that Mary expects Dean to be like John, and Dean has to emphatically reject that identity. 
> 
> Even the first scene where they meet in 12x01, Dean connects with Mary by recounting how she and John met, how John felt about her/she felt about John. And then the 12x22 scene is Mary, Dean, and two children.

* * *

 [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/161599591678/kayanem-elizabethrobertajones-while-im)

Yeah, I suppose that might be WHY Dean was in that chair, because it was such a strong image I thought we were doing a 1x01 repeat with Dean starring as John until the scene progressed into 5x16 instead. Using that chair for Dean to wake up in, though, REALLY implied he was stepping in John’s shoes in some ways. Maybe also for how Mary has to reject this too - seeing Dean for who he really is is seeing PAST the remaining surface level John crap.

Also I guess this ties into the whole performing!Dean thing which is BETTER but definitely not RESOLVED until we have some proper clear moments to prove it later in season 13… I suspect it’s like the fever broke on it by the end of season 12 but he’s still going to be carrying some of the symptoms a while >.> 


	22. Mary’s Plaid In Season 12 or Yes I Know Cas Has Plaid Under His Collar That Is The Joke

**Anonymous**  asked:

I don't know if you have noticed, but they have some serious clothing issues in season 12. Seasons 1-11 we just had Sam and Dean. But now that there's Mary, they can't all wear plaid. Because there would be too much flannel with three Winchesters. I'm being serious. I've rewatched season 12, and there's no episode where all three Winchesters wear plaid. One of them always has to sacrifice the hunter look.

Yeah, they don’t all wear it all the time anyway - Dean’s always had a bunch of stock shirts which are so boring he can wear them all the times he’s going to get killed or whatever gets him covered in blood to the point that he can’t use it any more :P Sam has slightly more variety, I think, because he doesn’t wear as many block colours in general, wears his shirts buttoned up so Dean can get away with wearing a block colour shirt and t-shirt, and Sam’s on the wrong side of the self-imposed class divide so doesn’t wear henleys either, all adding up to him needing at least subtle stripes on his shirts a lot of the time… Sam wearing boring grey in 11x22 should have been a warning something pretty horrific was going to happen to him because that’s Dean’s choice of colour for “I’m about to have a bad day and I don’t know it yet” which he at least also mixes into his regular wardrobe to add the element of surprise :P

Buuut yeah I bet there was at least 1 time they had a moment where they did all wear plaid and looked at each other and had to work out who had to go change immediately.

Anyway since we have a whole season now, let’s look at Mary because I like looking at Mary :D

12x01:

generic hunter jacket, jeans and boots (workman boots halfway between Sam n Dean’s). Shirt doesn’t look like much of anything she likes wearing, never did find out where Dean got this from for her, because finding perfectly fitted jeans at dawn in the middle of nowhere within apparent walking distance of the bunker?? There’s a weirdo gap where he stole clothes for his mom off a clothes line or something. I think the point was it was white and a little lacy at the top, mimicking the nightgown as a shirt, upgraded for hunter Mary. Easing the transition along :P

12x02:

she’s so SMALL.

At some point Dean also found her fluffy slippers. These are modern fluffy slippers because they don’t match ones we’ve seen him wearing around the bunker which I assume are period authentic ones.

Dean wears grey and black, I guess to match Sam’s nondescript colours, while Mary cracks out her first plaid, AND with a white henley underneath 

she’s still wearing white because mom, and Sam hasn’t seen her yet, but the plaid is the sign of hunting, and she’s officially dressing more like Dean right now. Dean wore red n blue and achieved balance in 11x23 and Mary is immediately the next one to wear it as the next plaid on screen since. I think it’s a sort of family integration theme since Sam n Dean often are red v blue coded.. I like this shirt because it has an XOXOXOXOX pattern embroidered on it. The mumsy version of their plaid :P

Cas is not wearing plaid. 

I noticed a couple of episodes further down the line that she almost always wears her shirt untucked on the right side, and I guess I thought she was just rumpled because of the fight but she already does it in both main outfits this episode.

Sam has swapped into plaid, but Dean and Mary are dressing identically except for the colour schemes and Mary’s untucking habit.

12x03:

Mary’s wearing the ring prominently for I think the first time, and of course is wearing her shirt tucked in like that (I think this is where I first noticed it) and is the outfit she cuts her hair in, so having her in 1 pale layer quietly mimicks her show-long look for a final time before she ditches it for having a much broader and more practical wardrobe. She’s wearing this to mourn John and read the journal, and also her conversation with Cas. Looking like a default Mary, as she “should” in the saint!Mary image influences Cas to feel he has to leave because she belongs or should feel she does and he wants her to bond with her sons, but she begins breaking away immediately after this.

Aaand Sam’s still the only one wearing any sort of pattern, and Mary is dressed like Dean (but belt, no untucked shirt) and Dean is wearing grey so he doesn’t step on anyone’s toes…

Mary also keeps wearing the red maroon of family, in a one off, no one else ever wears anything remotely like it, sleeveless jacket, which she wears exclusively in the car or in the dark so no screen shots

I think this is a lovely sweater, tucked into the left side, a tank top underneath it, which is like in 12x14 where she’ll be wearing a blank tank top similar but without the fashion layer on top, and her ring very obviously displayed. Going from white because mom to black because mourning, both her entire family, and in these conversations, the old way of hunting. She’s moved I guess from shock and non-stop action to the next step of grief.

At the motel Sam wears green and purple plaid, and Dean wears a denim shirt.

Look what you are doing to your sons, Mary.

12x06:

Mary is introduced boots first (the cowboy boots seen in her room in 12x02?)

  


This outfit is truly unflattering and practical - she’s swimming in the coat, but she’s also wearing a belt again like 12x03, which was the other way to distinguish how she wears her shirts, and on the family unity theme not only wearing red n blue plaid again, but has it half buttoned half unbuttoned, bridging the gap between how Dean and Sam wear theirs. She exists in a lot of spaces between - half-tucked, or half-buttoned.

Dean once again wears plain grey, and Sam wears grey plaid.

12x09:

White because Lawrence, plain blue shirt in closeness to Dean’s outfits, and wearing *dark* grey-green because she’s in mourning still. She’s not wearing plaid or family colours because she’s on her rejecting her living family tour in exchange for moping about the dead.

Swaps to red to yell at Cas for not wearing plaid. She’s angry, and she’ll later still be wearing this for getting Alicia’s call and going off on the path of distracting herself with hunting, a la Mark!Dean with random vampires, when Dean got really into wearing a red shirt of a similar hue. You couldn’t see the ring in Lawrence but it’s on top of her clothes again here. Maybe she just couldn’t bear to expose it while sitting in the same place she had her first date with John? Winchester repression and all.

Cas is not wearing plaid, and this is the epitome of ‘hey we’re gonna wear boring grey shirts to lose in 12x08 and boring grey jumpsuits all of 12x09’ for the Winchesters to keep them out of it, but Mary has the same under layers as at Mulroney’s but instead of dark grey-green she’s wearing her tan jacket, the Cas colour scheme because they’re bonding, and hilariously (or not >.>) the colour Sam is wearing in 12x21 in the letter scene… Dean has a plaid in these colours too which he wore in 12x13 to see Gavin reunited with his lost love, and first wore in 10x14 at the very end, so I’ve got it lodged in my brain as the Colette/pining set of colours on others. 

I guess in Mary’s case here it’s not about dead lovers, but an upgrade to focusing on a now problem instead of a past problem, and also of course is part of the huge Cas n Mary web of parallels, of which this episode visually doubles down on with the Cas missing Dean paralleling Mary in 12x03 missing John sitting at the table in the dark in the Bunker thing. Actually missing Sam n Dean, she sits at the kitchen table, the private family space, to avoid any cross-contamination of visual images, and links to the bacon scene in 12x03 where she and Cas both refused to engage with Dean’s happy family breakfast…

In the first scene Mary’s wearing this we get introduced by ANOTHER pan up from her boots (her… 3rd? maybe? already) this time again showing she’s wearing Dean-like boots, and her more killing-things friendly belt choice, and dark red plaid (so dark you can’t see it well >.>) and dark pink shirt, all of which screams Mark of Cain and Dean parallels.

Cas is still not wearing plaid.

this is the most generic Winchester plaid she has so far rather than one that yells mark of cain or the family balance and integration themes - everything from “what you needed most” to Dean n Sam getting to a better understanding re: all 12x22 did for them as well) but fits in the TFW plaid from earlier, with tan and blue (Dean is wearing his original tan plaid in that scene in 5x13 although not the first time he wears it - it goes back to Nightshifter and for some reason my brain always tells me he didn’t have the plaid until 8x01 at which point I briefly clip out of reality every time he first appears in it in season 2 :P) Anyway 5x13 is aaaall about Mary and their family destiny/curses (I say curses because it’s about the apocalypse but Michael throws in the Cain and Abel thing for free)

Since Sam n Dean didn’t get a chance this episode (and were purposefully wearing non-memorable clothes in 12x08 so nothing important got lost) she’s covered the whole plaid thing for them. She’s making the choice to work with the BMoL here and wearing Sam-like plaid in a Dean-like way - note the sleeves too - but ultimately this arc does fall on Sam.

Anyway she is acting as the representative head of the family here making the decision for them.

12x12:

ANON YOU ARE WRONG. All 4 Winchesters are wearing plaid, because my brain just clipped out of reality while I had it paused like this: 

and my brother who is coincidentally here on the other side of my monitor and I forgot was in the room because he’s listening to podcasts, stretched, and his plaid-covered elbow appeared behind Cas and I thought it was his.

(I’m very tired, it’s been a loooong day)

Anyway Sam’s wearing blue and white, Mary is wearing blue and black, Dean is wearing Burger Date Plaid which is more important for the diner scene than the rest of the episode, and Cas is at least going to have the decency to nearly die on the plaid sofa the same-ish pattern as Dean’s shirt next episode.

I suppose when 3 Winchesters get together all wearing plaid, Bad Shit Happens, so if all FOUR of them wore plaid at once, reality might fracture, and considering season 13 looks like reality is going to be having some serious fracturing issues anyway… Yeah. Bad idea.

Even Wally is wearing plaid…

Much luck it gave him.

Anyway Mary’s generally having some more dark arc stuff, with a blank henley and the evil version of sam’s plaid, and a nondescript pale green jacket over the top. The ONLY reason Mary has this many plain nondescript jackets of varying hues is for symbolism. In this case green is kinda toxic and since she and Sam have negative versions of each other’s plaid and connect over the yellow eyes thing, I think it’s more about her guilt.

This all transforms at the end to the 3rd version on a simple outfit, of the one from 12x09 but this time with pale blue to make her even more Cas-like, but these colours could honestly just be associated with bad decisions, given the context here… I mean, not like Cas isn’t a freakin beacon of them :P

She also blends nicely into the diner, with its blue and beige tones. Compared to Ketch in his fancy suit. She also isn’t wearing plaid for this, going under the table with this as it were.

12x13:

Sam, Dean and Mary aren’t all in the same scene but Dean is wearing dark grey/puple and Sam a dary grey/blue with thin red lines - Mary’s wearing the opposite again, white with thick red outlined in blue.

  


She’s also untucked on the same side again.

Sam and Dean swap into the generic red plaid for Sam and the TFW/Cas plaid I mentioned for Dean - beige, white and blue, which he wears the rest of the episode while dealing with the MacLeod family drama.

This is their most plaid intensive episode, then as all of them get a costume change and all opt for more plaid. They’re working on family loyalty stuff so it’s quite important.

Mary’s next one is for the very monotone scene with Ketch, where she’s wearing grey and brown, and her shirt isn’t tucked interestingly or anything.

I think that’s about as much as you need to say about this episode :P

12x14:

Ooops I forgot 12x13 fed into this episode. In my defence it’s a bad idea to split a 2 episode cliffhanger by cliffhangering like 3-4 minutes before the end of the episode, even though the next episode is going to start immediately where you left off with what of all of the things happening in your cluttered episode is the main plot thread… Ah well. 

Mary shows up in a cream henley, under a strawberries and cream plaid - although pink is a baaad sign on this show, I guess she may have been aiming for cute and mumsy again, but not wearing the cute XOXOXOX family integration theme plaid from 12x02 when it looked she might have a hope of doing that before draaaama hit.

Sam is wearing all black (keeping out of the way in the fight and thematically) and Dean is wearing a non-pink and much more tightly patterned shirt (he’s drawing those family lines closer together) in the same broad colour category as Mary’s, but does sort of link them - they have a fight that gets thiiis close to dealing with Dean had to be the mom all their lives not Mary, because Berens and all, but they don’t get close enough and it has to wait until 12x22 after this, but it aligns them in a different way to how Sam and Mary have been having night and day versions of each other’s plaids, just as her blue n red plaid is so similar to Dean colours, but not the ways Sam wears it.

We then cut to her wearing her black tactical gear, and in an alarming move for a Winchester, later just a tank top. Incidentally they should all do this more often, Mary right through to Cas. She however is not bearing all, because her texts just aren’t laying out the whole problem and I don’t think she can see it, because she brings sam to meet her, and gives him the pitch as soon as he gets out the car.

The main day of the action, Dean wears a red shirt, Sam wears blue, white and beige plaid (They own a LOT of these colour-combinations) 

  


Mary is wearing red and black plaid I think the same as 12x09’s main action, which aligns her with Dean (for the Ketch seduction parallel?) and sets her at odds with Sam so they’re not too conspicuously wearing night and day versions of each others’ clothes. They ARE both wearing hunter plaid (as Dean says, to do the job you put on a flannel…) while dealing with the hunter specific arc of the season, while Dean is wearing a plain red shirt, which he uses to face inner demons. Mary’s colour aligns her with Dean, the pattern with Sam, and he wears a red plaid shirt more often than Dean these days. For Sam and Mary it’s an episode where they’re doing their thing together. Especially as it deals with repercussions not root causes - their lives branched, and Mary’s giving Sam the speech about a world without monsters like he can reclaim what life he lost, but he is on the path to lead the hunters and all his MoL stuff, so the TFW/bad decisions colours are appropriate? Mary’s on a dark arc which the actions make clear but the red plaid is always a nice reminder of when it’s channelling Dean… Sam wears his with impunity.

12x17:

Another episode where Mary and Sam n Dean are separated for the most part so can get away with them all having at least worn plaid in the same episode, though 12x12 remains the only one they all wore it TOGETHER (see above: look what happens >.>)

I’m still bothered by the way Buckleming often write Sam and Dean as a total matching unit and I never managed to put my finger on it until this episode when they give Mick the “so yeah Lucifer’s baby is a thing” speech because it combines multiple other scenes they’ve written in the past to finally just make SamandDean a stock exposition unit. I probably have another post to write about this and how they helped contribute to an overall weird feeling with both sides of the fandom stanning for 1 brother and some who love both feeling their fave/s was totally sidelined this season - done right Sam n Dean as passive viewers to the story is a great device (11x14!!) and this season did it a lot as a way to lighten the load on dudes who managed to have 3 babies between the two of them this year in the space of a couple of months, but also to broaden the story to give Cas and Mary development and to follow some other threads beyond what the Winchesters see and know just because the show has grown so far out of its original bounds… But anyway this wardrobe moment the morning after makes Sam and Dean literally dress identically to talk to Mick, and the show knows the theme, it just wasn’t well-done here, and I love the use over all in the season but this episode made me really side-eye the execution.

The wardrobe in the Mary stuff was good though. She wears her XOXOXOXOX plaid with the red n blue blah blah family integration theme - Dean’s wearing his About A Boy plaid up there, incidentally, which is red and BLACK lines - Mary’s one was her uniform for saving Sam at the start of the season and she’s at a cusp of things here. She’s in a comfortable pattern working with Ketch, but I think lets her guard down to sleep with him, and though she puts up emotional walls immediately and there’s all the stuff with her ring and mourning and wanting to have both hunting and family (a GOOD side of the red n blue theme in other places) she’s really putting herself on the path that leads to her mini demon!Dean arc in 12x21/22 as the inevitable result of this Mark of Cain arc stuff since midseason.

12x20:

Grey jumpsuits, for her and Ketch, which now I’m looking at the costumes for season 12, should have been an even more obvious clue after 12x09, although honestly the fake out introduction to Mary in this episode with the shifter in captivity with her face > the end of the episode with Mary captured, was pretty telling without throwing in the obvious prison uniform imagery that this jumpsuit transforms completely depending on context; Mary in the chair or Mary out the chair.

Sam n Dean off on their side of things has Sam in the 12x12 light blue shirt, Dean in his off-brand demon!Dean shirt which isn’t a demon!Dean shirt at all, but one of coping and better decisions and trying a better way. But looks a whole lot like the old ways on the surface :P

Mary, meanwhile, is wearing grey plaid again. The prison jumpsuits thing is making me wonder belatedly if wearing grey this season has been about imprisonment, metaphorically or not - Sam wore it in 12x01 etc, and Kelly had a grey coat she wore a lot.

this one is darker, and with her black coat, her henley buttoned almost all the way up. Mary is defensive and secretive and beginning to be very suspicious about what she got herself into, investigating or interrogating in all her scenes except for the one where she kicks Ketch in the nuts aka the best thing Mary did for like all of 2 more episodes before she was like “I wanna punch the Devil in the face” because after killing Ketch she needed new goals :P

12x21:

Bearing in mind how MANY times she changes her clothes, including swapping out jackets and all, once she’s under the BMoL’s control, she has a freshly laundered set of exactly what she was wearing in 12x20 and no changes. It’s out of her control to decide now.

She starts dressed jacket and all, then is down to the plaid in the next scene and finally stripped down to the henley and a single layer as the BMoL metaphorically strip her inside too.

Then, new DARK jacket, I think a looser shirt, but the SAME grey plaid at the end. Untucked, on the wrong side.

Incidentally if you want bad things happening when all the Winchesters are in one room in plaid, Sam’s in a generic Sam shirt, Dean in his red and black checked plaid which is aaaalmost exactly like both Sam and Mary’s version of it, but not like the About a Boy one or other variations he has on the theme.

12x22

Hey guess who is now wearing grey plaid with RED AND BLUE in it under the black jacket? Aka Mary is imprisoned (we’re going with this, pls ignore how I’ve decided like 50% of the themes AS I analysed it :P) but has family back in her plaid - a sign she can be brought back, and a reason to hope at this point, and by the end of the episode, what she’s wearing for FAMILY REINTEGRATION :D

Hey look they all wear plaid :D

This may or may not open a rift in reality.

12x23:

  


Mary is back in white but in a wearing comfy plaid way, and it’s got blue and red in it. She’s mom again, but now updated and upgraded to being a hunter in the GOOD way not the way in 12x01 where she wore a white lace shirt just to hastily make her practical for one day of action, but she’s comfortably being Mom Winchester in the new understanding of what their family is.

Sam and Dean are in red and blue-ish colour coding although Dean’s actually in grey and you know what fuck them wearing grey. Take that shirt off right now.

nothing happens to Dean but he does kind of get shattered at the end of the episode and we don’t know what would happen to him next, so like I said maybe just avoid on principle.

Anyway the whole family looks all comfy and soft, at least until Dean and Mary put practical jackets over theirs, and Sam stacks the orange jacket over the brown-red plaid.

Cas continues to not wear plaid and pays the ultimate price. Get with the picture, buddy.


	23. Cas’s Self Worth And Where To Find It

> **Anonymous**  asked:
> 
> i need a second opinion - cas seemed so different in season 12, he was a lot sassier and kind of distancing himself from the winchesters for a bit, at least that's what it felt like to me. am i imagining this or something?

* * *

Well, Cas has been sassy from the start, and I think pretty much all the cases except a couple were pretty much Classic Cas, and part of the relative lack of sassy Cas in the last few years has been that he’s spent an enormous amount of time between season 9-11 downtrodden, possessed, depressed and all round miserable and isolated. He was far more back in the game this last year than he’s been for ages, which means we got to see him behaving somewhat normally.

I think his behaviour towards Crowley in 12x03 and 12x07 at times seemed different but it was in a cruel-mocking way in 12x03 and a “kill me” smile way in 12x07 and given Cas and Crowley’s dynamic and throw in several years of character development where Cas drifts more and more from a stoic angelic ideal (which especially around Crowley has often been way stronger than around friends), and honestly that he has no grounds to threaten Crowley while they work together this time so they’re equals in it, I can understand that he’d be somewhat strange around him. Their last interaction in season 10 of any meaningful character interaction was Crowley making Cas beg and genuinely aside from 11x18 they only shared scenes in passing or while Cas was controlled/possessed unless I’m missing something huge, right the way through to 11x23, where they exchanged a couple of lines only, and then right back to nothing meaningful until Crowley picks up Cas at that bar in 12x03. So that’s an enormous length of time where they’ve barely communicated and have had no personal arcs about each other, and their animosity has always been very strong and without much respite except that one time Crowley saved Cas in 10x03. 

After 12x03 people were worrying Cas was still possessed/affected by being Lucifer, and obviously that had no major plot thing happen ever, but I ended up thinking that it doesn’t hurt to compare them as a sort of vague meta interest, especially as Lucifer and Cas get compared a lot in certain ways by certain people (usually to make Cas feel bad), and they *are* both angels who really really dislike Crowley. In 12x03 in general Cas was trying very hard to be like the Winchesters (and Dean in particular I think although I would) and trying a lot of new things behaviourally to try and hunt Lucifer, such as ditching the trenchcoat for interviews, checking his hair in the mirror (I am convinced he’s seen Dean do it and I can pull receipts on Dean doing it in front of Cas if you need them) and, well, not blowing up a door to talk to someone. And working with Crowley again somewhat voluntarily. Their dynamic was hilarious so I think it was all good grounds for showing some character changes in Cas about the new things he’s learned, not all necessarily good, but behaviours he’s picked up. Using Crowley to bounce it all off of and then show he’s still fairly normal sassy with Dean also showed a nice difference.

As for him being distant, I think it was deliberate from Cas because of all the stuff we were saying in 12x03 when he left, that he didn’t feel he belonged and that he thought Mary had a higher precedence than him to the guys, which bore out through the season since it kept Cas’s arc on being loved and belonging and feeling at home. I think it played at least a small part in every single episode, or at least Cas’s self-worth motivated other things. He and Dean were at a miscommunication overload pretty much all season as well, which didn’t help, and Dean was acting as weird and distant to him in other parts. 12x01 started with them in the best place, and by the time Cas left the brief little bubble of seeming domestic bliss was over for them… 

Mary didn’t *deliberately* drive a wedge between them but her presence was a motivator for Cas to leave and especially as she didn’t understand Cas until halfway through 12x09, if not after 12x12, there were several times when she mistakenly played right into things that would make Cas feel worse about himself, like assuming in 12x01 he was an attack dog, mis-reading the depth of understanding between him and Dean but also a misunderstanding Cas makes about the same thing. 

Season 12 from Sam and Dean’s POV but especially Dean’s was told to us in 12x22 as being about the absences in his life, in that conversation right before he realises he can use the grenade launcher, where he effectively sums up the thing 12x03 used in the opening moments to explain how Cas and Mary felt and why Cas and Mary left, from Dean’s POV was just about losing them after seeming to have it made with them both back, and 12x22 was for understanding Mary better and getting her back, but he failed to get Cas back in time with the same understanding of why he left - if Dean’s going to get that Cas wants more than what he has he’s still got to work it out for himself, and I think a lot of his problem is not realising just how bad it is for Cas, and how isolated and like a tool he feels, just as he needed to realise Mary was pulling away from him and ignoring him in her head in 12x22 to put together all the pieces to make the speech that pulled her back. 

I think Berens wrote the Mary and Cas arc absolutely flawlessly in his parts to explain what it was all about and set it all up and then pay off what was in his reach. I absolutely think what we didn’t get with Cas but did with Mary is an intentional negative space, from the way he leaned into them being side by side. And Mary was actively ignoring and pulling away from Dean, and Cas also left in 12x03 and pulled away. As much as he loves Dean he’s in a similar state but hasn’t been salvaged from it, and so through the season his behaviour was a bit distant even in some friendly seeming episodes, but this was because he needed reaching out to in a way Dean couldn’t (12x19′s mixtape conversation being the exact wrong pep talk after Cas leans into the apparent break up vibes all over it :P And something Berens had a half-share in, probably.) 

I don’t think it’s a bad thing because it’s just part of the journey, and it was being used to convey how Cas feels in general, and playing a part in how his arc is going to go - I’d hope to the point of being able to put all those misunderstandings clearly out there and let him feel he can come in from the cold and trust the love that’s being pushed his way as something he deserves. But his is the side of the story they’re taking longer to explore and resolve since it didn’t get there this time, and is building off years of this same arc before Mary’s joined up with it. But yeah, from Cas’s POV I think it pretty much boils down to that he didn’t think he even deserved the closeness and hanging out with Crowley was about as much as he could hope for, which explains both things perfectly to me :P 

* * *

> **Anonymous**  asked:
> 
> I don't know if this will make sense but I'm kind of responding to your answer about Cas seeming different and wondering about your conclusion that Cas feels like a tool/needs to feel he deserves love and I feel like it's not wrong but like we're having to put all these pieces together and concluding instead of getting Cas' side of this from Cas? Like we had to get Mary's side from Dean and I'm wondering if that's just me? And if not, why aren't we getting more of Cas' story from Cas?

* * *

I think it is something that we can get directly from Cas or stuff that happens to Cas, but then I also got the impression of all of Mary’s stuff from Mary :P 

I think in 12x22 Dean had a lot of personal realisations about HIMSELF and told them all to Mary, but it was quite clear, but not to him until he realised it, that Mary was going to ignore him. If nothing else, immediately before he went into her head, she was paralleling demon!Dean in 10x03, tied to a chair in a very similar manner and recalling how Dean didn’t want to be saved there and was having all sorts of negative feelings about his family come to the surface for the first time in that way. 

So there was a context clue for us before he ever realised that she wasn’t going to be easy to reason with and want to be saved. Aside from that, her part in the season was to be perpetually depressed, suicidal, or in avoidance, running away from her family, and early on her guilt about them and loss was presented very clearly to us over the introductory run of episodes up to the halfway point. Since no good storytelling just tells us straight out what they’re thinking, only 12x02 had Mary just straight out tell us what she was worried about, but we’re supposed to be able to understand stories without that sort of exposition, and I think a lot of it was given to us in moments which weren’t that hard to read. I’ve written so much about her over this year and this question is about Cas, but anyway, I think her story was laid out well enough that it wasn’t like a surprise twist that she was feeling this way, and I don’t think it was supposed to be for anyone but Dean. 

Since you’re talking about what we can read, without much effort, I don’t think Mary’s story this season was at all difficult, and the only reason I can imagine people think it’s buried in the subtext is because we’re so used to being told that readings in the subtext don’t count for Destiel that we forget that normal readings of the story happen on all layers and when it’s not about the queer reading people in general can be expected to pick up an awful lot more even if they don’t know it - the sort of thing a casual viewer would be just “oh yeah right I remember” when you explain it to them, not needing a diagram, just a refresher that obviously the writers would remember the pilot of their own show when you point out the similarity between scenes or whatever. :P

So, I think we have got a lot of Cas’s story from Cas or so immediately about Cas we only need his mute reaction to a lot of lines to know how it applies to him.

This begins properly in 11x06, with some flashbacks to his earlier trauma, as an actual storyline ABOUT Cas and how he feels, but to go right back to the start, in the very first few interactions between Cas and Dean we get stuff like

> DEAN:  
> Of course you have a choice. I mean, come on, what? You’ve never questioned a crap order, huh? What are you both, just a couple of hammers?

and the follow up

> CASTIEL:  
> I’m not a… hammer as you say. I have questions, I have doubts. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here.

I would consider 4x07 the start of Cas’s actual personal arc rather than just exposition angel, and his arc in season 4 is to learn to think for himself, along with being programmed back to being a tool for Heaven to use to help start the apocalypse. This opening to the whole saga uses the imagery of Cas as a tool to set up what his story will about, so from the get go Cas’s agency has been framed as NOT being a tool, against the very heavy threat of being used as one. So as a baseline basically any time that’s compromised he’s being used as a tool and it’s something he’s said about himself and has been said about him from the very beginning, so it’s a fundamental part of his characterisation.

Season 8, where I consider his proper personal arc to begin anew, also uses him in the tool of Heaven imagery, going back to the season 4 reprogramming thing by introducing Naomi and exploring how angels inherently don’t seem to have agency when following orders and working for Heaven. Cas is used as her weapon to deal with Heaven’s problems, and he earns his freedom at the end of the season really only at the hands of Metatron, who had a problem with Naomi that he’d been avoiding her for millennia and, fittingly, killed her with one of her own tools. (Of course, after their loyalties had shifted for us on screen so Naomi’s death was tragic and Metatron was clearly the villain.) This entire arc is about the angels’ agency as use as tools, and again is the start of how Cas’s story is being told - going from being used like this to the pure, terrifying freedom of being human with no strings at all.

In season 9 he takes grace back to be useful in the fight, and it starts a thing of angelic power being useful for him as a weapon in a way, that he needs it to fight, and to see himself as disposable for the sake of saving his friends and taking down Metatron, or why else take grace that will burn him out. Metatron spends the end of the season pulling Cas’s strings and using him as a puppet in his shadow play, and Cas wins back agency at the end of the season, metaphorically, by smashing the angel tablet, because he ends Metatron’s power to yank all the angels around - same shit different day in Heaven. Cas is also repeatedly asked about the grace and why he’s in the fight and so on, and his reluctance as a leader and setting aside personal feelings to self-sacrifice are all evident, so his self-worth and using himself up for the fight are some of the main themes for his personal arc that season.

In season 10 it gets more self-reflective - he’s allowing the grace to burn out and Hannah is trying to save him from himself but he refuses on the grounds that he’s not worth it. Crowley then saves him supposedly conscience free that Crowley did all the evil parts necessary to get Cas back in the game, and basically tells him he did it so he can point him at the Bunker to save/stop Dean. If Cas takes him at face value he didn’t do it to be sentimental (and this IS Cas after all) then it’s another use of Cas as a weapon to get the job done. Cas also tells Hannah that the mission is everything, above his own health and happiness. So that’s words direct from his mouth which betray his feelings of being useful only as a tool.

After he saves Dean he leaves to carry on working with Hannah rather than stop and hang out with them at the Bunker and get some down time with them - as he said to Hannah, the mission comes first and he sort of owed it to her after derailing it to saving Dean and putting that above everything. When the “mission” runs out of steam and Hannah leaves, Cas immediately turns his attention to checking up on Claire, and by the time Dean reaches him for the Burger Date, Cas is feeling openly dejected and useless and Dean accuses him of having a mid life crisis :P I love this whole scene but anyway Dean nails how Cas feels, I think, and it’s written all over his face and preceding scenes that he was trying to be useful because he’s finally cut loose from Heaven’s demands, and all other missions, with that same freedom he had suddenly in 8x23, but still an angel and with no other way to direct it than trying to find new missions:

> DEAN:  
> Cas, listen to me. There’s some stuff you just got to let go. Okay? The people you let down, the ones you can’t save … You got to forget about them. For your own good.

I think this conversation is really good for showing us through Dean realising these things about Cas that he’s just trying to be useful and desperately searching for something to do - Dean sees he’s basically working through a checklist of stuff he feels he’s done harm to the world over, and I think he understands from knowing Cas just how Cas acted with Claire the night before, repeatedly trying to help her to the point of pestering her, so she ran away and didn’t want to be helped, at least not by having a guardian angel suddenly shadowing her everywhere. And certainly not this one :P Anyway Cas persists and gets a sort of mixed victory there by the end of the season, with Claire accepting their help, resolving the stuff with Amelia, and Cas getting to see her sent to safety, and Claire hugs him in gratitude…

Meanwhile, through the rest of his part of the season, he just wants to help save Dean, and spends a large chunk of the season off-screen searching for something to help, and does so with a determination that has Heaven turn against him for putting saving Dean first (the final pay off of the stuff that started between him and Hannah in 10x02, that he wouldn’t let her free Metatron to save him, but he frees Metatron to save Dean). Sam convinces him to do one good thing for HIMSELF and get his grace back so he won’t die, and ends up stuck with Metatron berating him for his personal moral failings for an entire episode, culminating in 

> METATRON  
> Brothers and sisters? Listen to you. Still spitting out the company line like anyone cares. Like we’re actually a family? When what we really are – are a bunch of glowing lights filled with self-loathing or delusions of grandeur. Or both.
> 
> CASTIEL  
> You shut up!
> 
> METATRON  
> No! If I’m gonna die, I want answers. Like, who are you now? Like, you’re obviously not an angel of the Lord. And what about all of this walking the earth like Caine from “Kung Fu” crap? Cleaning up Heaven’s messes. How many more rogue angels are there out there? And, what are you gonna do once you’re done with all that? Go back to Heaven? Please. The angel formerly known as Hannah has restored order up top. Smoothest it’s run since God cut the ribbon on the pearly gates. So tell me, Castiel, truly, what is your mission now?
> 
> CASTIEL  
> You shut up and keep looking.

In part this is about his identity and loyalties but on this subject it’s also highlighting how he’s looking for missions and has started to lose his agency/identity to the need to do that exactly like back in season 4 when working mindlessly for Heaven was equated to being a hammer. This rant has the subtext that he’s doing the same for Dean, with that nice “Caine from Kung Fu” link because I don’t think you can mention “Caine” without “Mark of Cain” zooming immediately to mind in season 10. We’ve also not seen him do any missions for Heaven since 10x07 and anyhow this is after he breaks up with Heaven officially rather than Hannah just leaving him to do his own stuff; now he’s a wanted criminal. After this, his story pretty much fizzles out for the season except for 10x20, and showing up to help the Winchesters with the Mark, which he does past the point of the fight with Dean in 10x22 (where he swears he’ll stick with Dean and watch him murder the world - yikes Cas). I think this fight is the earliest trauma from his 11x06 flashbacks. After, he heals himself, and next time we see him, is just chatting to Sam about what next. 

Rowena picks up the mocking where Metatron left off, notably calling Cas a dog that thinks he’s people (because she has watched a lot of the Simpsons I guess? :P) and then at the end of the season, the reward for all his troubles, she casts the attack dog spell on him, which is the most obvious way to take away his agency and turn him into a weapon to kill Crowley. I think it’s also very much a commentary on how he was used in season 10 - that Rowena showing up late to hang with the main crowd identifies Cas as nothing more useful than an attack dog. Mary will do the same later.

So, that gets us to 11x06, where Cas is shown having traumatic flashbacks, another reminder of the “dog that thinks it’s people” line, and then we see from Sam and Dean’s POV a sympathetic conversation about Cas, which when Dean phones Cas, seems to be way more “up and at em, we need to you do stuff for us again”, where Dean seems to us sympathetic and worried, we can also see from Cas’s perspective that he’s depressed and ill and wants to stay in and not be a part of this fight right now, because he’s been so horribly hurt by it lately, mostly for reasons beyond his control rather than any noble self-sacrifice. It was just an endless string of trying to help and having his agency taken away and getting hurt or hurting people as a result of it. The flashbacks don’t go as far back as 8x17 of course, but in 11x03 he beats Dean up in a parallel to that moment, and the links are all there that this keeps on happening to Cas. 

He eventually pulls the trenchcoat back on to report for duty, leaves the house, gets the demon tablet, and goes through a whole new round of mocking from Metatron.

> METATRON  
> You have gone full wuss. I don’t know what it was that happened, but whatever it was, you are scarred…deep, paralyzed by trauma, by fear. I mean, look at you. You can’t even hit me!
> 
> (Castiel punches Metatron in the face)
> 
> CASTIEL (grabbing Metatron by the collar again)  
> It’s not fear.

[…]

> METATRON  
> Okay. So I misjudged. You’re not scared. You’re mad. And I get it.  
> I mean, it must suck being everyone’s tool, manipulated and used by the angels, by your enemies-
> 
> -by your friends.

the “by your friends” is important for telling us that Cas feels this way because of season 10 especially (Sam and the Book of the Damned is not addressed directly very much but in 10x18 he lies directly to Cas about it before the rest of the pizza party show up, before getting Cas to help later anyway), and also Dean’s comments from the start of the episode wheedling Cas back into helping.

At the end of the episode Dean and Cas are furious with each other over losing Amara and Metatron and Cas is covering up all this hurt that Metatron has put out in the open for us - as a great way to be Cas’s dark inner voice vocalised for our benefit, so we can guess why he’s lashing out, and Dean is lashing out for reasons we can understand from his problem with Amara’s control over him. They’re at an understanding impasse, because they both feel manipulated and controlled and helpless but for different reasons, this time Dean under the supernatural influence, Cas under his own trauma and lack of self-worth, and maybe even doubts sown about how much he can trust or rely on his friends to care for him.

This of course leads to 11x10 and once again a seemingly tender conversation between Dean and Cas if we see it from Dean’s side and Cas comes when he calls, tries to tend to him when he’s sick, and Dean says things to Cas going off to confront Amara which are Dean’s way of being concerned and reaching out for Cas, but Cas as the previous episode with him established, is not going to understand anything but clear speech from Dean about this, so from his POV we see him once again rushing to Dean when he’s needed, and a combination of being sent into danger (Dean offers to come but Cas doesn’t want him to turn to salt and says no, but legitimate reasons aside, he’s still being sent alone), and Cas volunteering to do something dangerous on Dean’s behalf. He then walks right into Ambriel:

> Ambriel: Well, that’s why we’re here, right? I’m a number cruncher and you… like I said, I’ve heard the stories. You help. But Sam and Dean Winchester are the real heroes. So, if the Darkness is still alive and she’s pissed… and she kills us… no big loss. So sure, maybe we’re not super important, but we do the job. You know… I think there’s nobility in that. 

Once again someone else vocalises for us what Cas might be feeling, or the words which will cut deepest and make him feel the worst, building on what has been already clearly explained in the text. Amara repeats this, adding he’s not worth killing, uses him to send a message she’d rather carve into him than rely on him to repeat himself, and Cas goes and says yes to Lucifer - in this show’s language one of the most awful ways to give up your agency and through the conversation between Sam and Lucifer in the rest of the episode, obviously a way to be a tool of use for a bigger purpose.

> SAM  
> Cas? Why?
> 
> CASTIEL  
> I wanted to be of service to the fight. And only Lucifer can beat her.

[…]

> CASTIEL  
> I can’t! It’s taking all my strength to keep him from killing you. And besides, we need him!
> 
> SAM  
> No Cas, we don’t. We’ll find another way to stop Amara!
> 
> CASTIEL  
> (Shakes his head) We need him to save Dean.

Cas sacrifices his agency to save Dean in 11x14, and explains his earlier motivation to be useful in the fight. 

I think we have to go all the way back to the Burger Date in 10x09 for the last round of this conversation but once Cas and Dean are talking normally again, Dean once again tries to understand and to make Cas feel better when Lucifer did not turn out to be any help whatsoever and Amara does part 1 of giving Dean back the things he needs most (I mean come on 12x22 pretty much made that canon :P):

> DEAN:  
> No, no, no. It wasn’t stupid.

[…]

> DEAN:  
> No, but it was our best shot, and you stepped up.
> 
> CAS:  
> I was just trying to help.
> 
> DEAN:  
> Well, and you do help, Cas.

[…]

> DEAN:  
> You know, sometimes me and Sam have got so much going on that…we forget about everyone else.

This is the sort of thing Cas needed to hear a long time ago and before he did any of these things, and a small reassurance far too late that Sam and Dean care about him. Still, he ends the season on good footing with Dean, mostly. He offers to go with him into the fight and Dean says no, because he wants Cas to be alive for, well, Cas being alive reasons. He tries to cheer him up with a PURPOSE, to look after Sam once Dean is dead and wowwww that is a poisoned gift because it’s the codependency’s prime motive from Dean - “take your brother outside as fast as you can!” all handed over to Cas :P 

Cas  _immediately_  loses Sam, comes crawling out of that crater full of fury and disrespect for random humans and their property if it gets him back to the Bunker - and walks right into Dean alive and well. Aww, happy ending! 

Hm.

Somewhere in the first 20 minutes of the episode before this moment, Mary gets a pretty good idea of how useful it is to have an angel around to do your bidding, pick up your laundry, and beat up mooks for you:

> CASTIEL HEADBUTTS JAMIE TWICE.
> 
> DEAN   
> Cas!
> 
> MARY  
> That’s an angel?

Cas’s attack dog dynamic is now in focus, that he has his agency, he’s back with the family he loves, but do they love him? Dean squishes him happily, but I figured he was letting Cas menace the driver because Cas is kinda terrifying at getting info and also Dean understands failing rule no.1, look out for Sammy. Since Cas failed it this time when Toni banished him, he knows how Cas feels and lets him do the talking, but also, out of concern and understanding, tries to rein Cas in when he’s hurting the dude. 

Mary’s impression is forming now that however close Cas is as a friend, he’s also someone who attacks on command for them in defence of their family. Oops. I think I said this in that other post that Cas doesn’t quite understand his dynamic with Dean because of all this trauma from earlier, that he doubts his worth, and Mary seeing the surface text instead of how much Dean cares about Cas as more than this, stamps a seal on it, that this is how Cas’s dynamic with Dean comes across to others who don’t know them. And is part of Cas’s deep misunderstanding of his own worth.

Then we get the BMoL and what is probably most of the last year’s worth of content in my Dean vs dogs tag:

> MICK:   
> Not to mention I powered down all the wardings in this shack so your attack dog could come in. I reckon you could finish me off without breaking a sweat. Am I right? 

[…]

> KETCH  
> You. Angel. Wipe their memories.
> 
> U.S. government plates. Elite dogcatcher level. Someone special wants you. Whose hydrant have you lads been tinkling on?

Both Mick and Ketch on their intro immediately class Cas as the Winchester’s attack dog. Ketch himself happily admits to being a point-and-attack dog, preferring mindless orders to just go kill whatever someone else decides needs killing. This imagery is applied to all of the family except Sam through the season - Cas here, Ketch in 12x14 comparing himself to Dean, and later to Mary, and Mary in 12x22 killing the cold open hunter with what look like claws as her weapon while she’s been brainwashed to be their attack dog in a parallel to just about every time Dean or Cas have lost their agency through basically the entire show. Like, going straight from controlled by Naomi to demon!Dean in a couple of scenes :P 

(As I’ve been scrolling the transcripts list I also remembered in 12x06 there’s the metaphor of Asa’s angel blade that he kept in a velvet box as his best tool for killing demons, while to Dean it’s a familiar, friendly object and he does not see it as a velvet box thing or necessarily a tool in the same way Asa would have. Obviously Cas is the angel blade in this metaphor :P Although this isn’t telling us so directly, I thought I’d mention it.)

Cas through most of the season keeps his agency and instead deals with what his worth is. He blatantly talks to Mary about belonging in 12x03 and decides to leave based on feeling like she deserves to get Sam and Dean’s attention more, and that he can go on without them and go hunt Lucifer alone because they will want to be with her more. His absence from the family dinner in 12x02 silently suggests this is coming. 

When they meet back up in 12x07 they work fairly equally and Cas even gets some of the best leads and insight to get them to Lucifer, but when they arrive there he immediately volunteers to buy them time, at his own expense and belief he’s ruined everything. 

> Castiel:   
> I’ll take Lucifer. He’s my responsibility.
> 
> Sam:   
> No, he’s not. He’s all of our responsibility.
> 
> Castiel:   
> Well, the only way you’ll clear that crowd without drawing fire is if he’s otherwise engaged.
> 
> Dean:   
> Engaged in what, Cas? Killing you?
> 
> Sam:   
> Cas, you’ll last…three minutes tops.
> 
> Castiel:   
> Then I’ll buy you three minutes.

Dean expresses concern over Cas, but I think honestly 12x12 showed the level Dean needs to reciprocate to Cas’s expressed feelings for Cas to feel confident in how much they love him, because 12x10 and “I’m not mad, I’m worried” and them sticking around to die for Cas/save him if they can/not leave him while he’s dying, still wasn’t enough to prove they cared more about Cas alive and with them than just being good people who deserved protecting because they care for him, probably because they’re good human people who would love and protect everyone indiscriminately. Mary’s presence also helps defuse this from being personal, per say, as using the entire living Winchester family as an example of how good humanity is, to Cas, if you look at them in a molecular way. If he sees himself as sadly too disposable as an angel to be a proper part of this group, and that they’re just so good they’d act with this kindness towards him because that’s what they ALL do.

(Cas has probably got to realise off-screen that the Colt was what almost got him killed, since he knows about it in 12x19, and he knows the Winchesters have it so Heaven clearly has up to date, detailed intel - we are not just missing Dean’s reaction to knowing what Mary did in 12x12, although without Cas presence, in 12x14 Dean basically kicks Mary out for betraying Sam’s trauma with the BMoL AND nearly getting Cas killed, standing up for Cas full of indignant rage that Cas presumably has no idea Dean would feel and do on his behalf…)

Mary’s arc with understanding Cas resolves in the midseason as she realises Cas has suffered a loss as well as her, but not before saying more things to make him feel horrible about his DUTY to protect the Winchesters, as she sees him as the angel she promised her sons:

> MARY:   
> You left them.
> 
> CASTIEL:   
> No, I… Dean told me to go. The woman–
> 
> MARY:   
> The one you lost?
> 
> CASTIEL:   
> I didn’t. I… I thought that she–
> 
> MARY:   
> Stop making excuses.
> 
> [Cas looks down, and Mary sighs heavily]
> 
> MARY:   
> Why… if they needed help, why didn’t they call me?
> 
> CASTIEL:   
> You were out.
> 
> MARY: [sighs]   
> How did we let this happen, Castiel?

If Cas wasn’t having an ongoing self-confidence/worth crisis her switch to understanding over this short scene would have probably helped more, but she lashes out and blames him, and only backtracks to understand she is to blame as well, and expresses this as a joint problem, without absolving Cas. It plays similar to 11x06 and Dean and Cas’s argument at the end, but Mary not realising she’s to blame until she’s already in the argument, which defuses it more than Dean and Cas butting heads both feeling awful and blaming the other from the start. 

However, she doesn’t give much ground there, and they meet months later to catch up, and Cas expresses how he was too insecure and scared to finish a hunt, which Mary then does for him - their bonding is tentative and not particularly great for reassuring Cas. Mary OUGHT to have turned it into an entire MotW for just the 2 of them where she nurtures Cas through the hunt and boosts his self-confidence by letting him lead and nudging him kindly through the steps, you know, in an ideal world where character development happens instantly instead of slow-cooking for 3 seasons :P 

Still, by the end of the episode they’re more equal and by the end of 12x12, Mary calls Cas “one of her boys”, probably through the trauma of almost getting Cas killed and realising how TFW see each other as family, and Cas including her in his rant in 12x09 and his “I love all of you” speech there. This change happens AFTER Mary (who is a lot like Dean) understands Cas is more than an attack dog and shows care for him, on a much much smaller scale, less fucked up, version of this relationship.

In 12x15 Cas doesn’t give much away to Kelvin, but after the mixtape conversation in 12x19 Dean only manages to convince Cas further that he should take on the burden of murdering Kelly for the sake of the planet without Dean being responsible for the death of an innocent, he tells Kelvin straight out exactly how much he values himself over the Winchesters and how much he cares about Heaven and his old sense of belonging that has long been lost since Hannah:

> Kelvin:   
> You’re doing the right thing, you know. Committing to Joshua’s plan, putting angelkind above the Winchesters. I mean, your reputation in Heaven is –   
>   
> Castiel:   
> This has nothing to do with my reputation. I am doing this for the Winchesters. I-I stole the Colt to keep them out of this mission and to keep them safe from Dagon, and I – I will kill this girl so that Sam and Dean don’t have to. 

His entire end of season drama spins from him choosing to deceive them and steal from them for their own safety and at his own expense, building on stuff that has been clearly communicated either negatively at Cas by villains, Mary while she’s upset, or through conversation and misunderstanding from Dean, and at this point he voices clearly that he is disposable and a tool that will be used on their behalf to protect them. 

And in the end when he reaches Kelly, he is MORE than a tool that kills for them; he has a heart and he spares her. 

> Castiel:   
> Please don’t thank me. I had a mission and I failed. 

Aka he was defining himself by his mission again, and feels worthless now he couldn’t protect them. He even falls back on letting Heaven tell him what to do, and TRYING to act as their tool to resolve this because maybe giving his service back over to them will help him achieve his personal goals. And working with Heaven, always, has been a partial loss of agency, even as a metaphorical loss in this battle.

> Castiel:   
> No, it isn’t. I used to believe in a plan. I used to believe that I had some mission. But I have been through enough now to know that everyone is just winging it. Some of us quite badly. 

He expresses his loss of purpose and how he feels he’s failed again, this time in the context of not being able to be a tool for Heaven, following a plan where his agency didn’t matter. (Although 12x10 shows Cas in the past doing this and still flinching and showing us he always had that crack Naomi mentioned, which in 4x07 he expresses to Dean. And in this episode is how he can’t kill Kelly, because he DOES have agency and isn’t just a tool.) It’s all still in here, everything that’s ever been expressed on this subject about Cas before.

> Castiel:   
> I know. I wanted to keep you out of this. I-I was trying to keep you safe.  
>   
> Dean:   
> You’re not our babysitter, Cas, okay? That is not your job. And when in our whole lives have we ever been safe?   
>   
> Castiel:   
> This is my responsibility because it is my plan. 

Dean specifically calls out Cas’s sense of obligation to them, because as with 10x09 and 11x23, he does understand SOME of what Cas goes through, just as in 4x07 their final conversation meant so much because Cas was literally summing up Dean’s entire life vs John’s orders, through his own experience with Heaven. 

He sort of understands but he doesn’t get just how worthless Cas feels or he’d be able to argue from another POV or to get right in deep explaining how he has felt in similar situations and empathise. He probably hasn’t been on directly the same page as Cas since 5x17 and that crappy fathers bonding moment, before their emotional paths began to complicate away from understanding each other again. He needs to understand the root of the depression and worthlessness and how he has his own part in it, which 12x01 showed very clearly through Mary, that Cas misinterprets Dean and doubts that they’re equal enough to trust his gestures of love (hence returning the mixtape as a symbolic gesture of that)

12x12′s demonstration of love just makes him more determined to be their guardian angel than to come home and eat pizza with them every night. Dean needs to address his own part in it rather than empty reassurances about Cas “babysitting” them. Mention of pizza and babysitter in this paragraph accidental. Sort of. :P Anyway that’s a surface level thing - that Dean thinks Cas is babysitting them and doesn’t think THEY can handle it despite evidence to the contrary of many averted apocalypses, or that Cas just thinks they need protection because they’re squishy humans and he’s an angel. He SAID out loud in 12x12 for them to leave so he didn’t have to watch them die, but I don’t think Dean has internalised this idea of how much Cas cares about them because his approach is not nuanced enough to understand why Cas keeps on slipping through his fingers this episode. Not because Dean doesn’t get nuance, but because he has missed the important parts where Cas is ground down to feel awful, and sees Cas as stronger than he really is, part of his own issues connecting to Cas or trusting his own feelings will be reciprocated there, as he still may not have Cas down from the angel pedestal he has him on, when he sees the surface layer of all this or assumes Cas understands him and his gestures (like just giving Cas a mixtape without making it clear beforehand it was a gift for Cas to keep, apparently).

I paralleled Cas’s feelings here to 6x20 and I think the confrontation is the same but as if Dean caught Cas during the raking leaves thing or soon after it. It hasn’t escalated yet but the reasoning Cas has for turning away and going with Crowley is the same reason he left with Kelvin and stole the Colt. The escalation follows when it goes out of control, and Kelly steals the car with Cas in it, the inevitable part in season 6 where Cas is beyond reach and helpless to the leviathans (though Jack in season 13 will probably be way less overtly evil, if at all if they get the win on this one). But yeah,in 12x19, think of the car as Cas and Kelly and Cas within it as parts of his psyche, which Kelly taking over and making off with him as the part of him bound to duty and and the Mission, and Cas in the backseat the reasonable, doubting, faithless Cas we know and love.

From there he has a loss of clear agency while helping Kelly, with Jack reaching through him and giving him the power to kill Dagon, picking him as a guardian angel and giving Cas a horrifying vision of blissful paradise and pure faith to influence him to help, which in this show’s language we just plain do not trust, no matter how Jack turns out, in the immediate moment of what happens to Cas, in the show’s language this is awful. And because of it Cas goes to his inevitable death to protect Kelly as a metaphor for his guardian angel problems, made clear across the season and drawing on his entire history of struggling with these things, and dies while fighting to protect the Winchesters from Lucifer at his own expense, a senseless rush in to fight and protect, where his own safety probably did not even cross his mind. 

SO to get to the actual question about how if/when Dean confronts Cas about this, and if it needs to be said (and I don’t need to answer “why not” in this case for how I see it >.>) I do think the entire thing is already in the text for us, and the entire point is Dean missing the point, the point being how much Cas loves him unreservedly and the point of doing literally anything to protect him because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy of worthlessness and measuring his success in protecting Dean.

We’ve always generically as a fandom seemed to love the “angels are watching over you” line because we have felt like Cas was doing that for Dean in a way. It’s romantic to take as an innocent comment Cas will be there for Dean one day.

But I think this season took all the previous exploration of this which was already on the table, especially since the end of season 10/start of season 11 as an arc that directly affected Cas’s health, and turned Cas’s guardian angel instinct into something as directly bad for him as extreme codependency gestures are for Sam and Dean, like Sam in 8x23, I think Cas stealing the colt and telling Kelvin why is almost exactly as bad as Sam saying he doesn’t want to fail Dean and be replaced by someone Dean loves more than him. Or Dean’s speech in 2x22 before he sells his soul about how he always had to look out for Sam. I think this is actually all on the table for change and for Cas to hopefully come out of it healed, but I think mainly what Dabb era did was look at how broken Cas was in previous seasons and try and pick a direction to get him to that healing point, and season 12 was for getting him to the worst possible point of it in order for him to have a rock bottom to be reclaimed from and to show us how bad it could get, from hurting friends, to loss of agency, to death for Cas. Killing him for this reason would HOPEFULLY mean to bring him back with its weight symbolically killed from him.

(I also think Jack’s influence thankfully takes the burden of ruining Cas off of Dean’s shoulders somewhat but he still should ideally realise he’s done this to Cas, inadvertently, through misunderstanding.)

Anywho. If you read it like this, I think 12x19 absolutely laid out the entire thing from Cas’s side already, which is why it’s now Dean with the onus to realise and have the similar confrontation as 12x22 with Mary. Like I said, it’s a long term thing for Cas so I think there are some things which may get resolved while he’s dead that probably won’t relate directly to Dean and it may not be until, like, the end of season 13 or something until Dean can talk to Cas and work it out, but I think the text has been plainly saying how Cas feels and what’s wrong with him in incredibly big writing, and Cas himself expressed many of these things out loud or said things that will be easily taken to be a part of this sorry collection. It’s definitely not mysterious to me, or something I feel that Cas has to say much more about to make it obvious, anyway.

I suppose he will probably express how he feels another time anyway, but I think all the groundwork has been very clearly laid and the putting together and drawing conclusions we do is very much from the surface text of what I feel the show has been trying to convey about Cas’s feelings all along. When you ignore the Destiel elements of many of these moments (because somehow that makes it more subtext and people won’t credit what you’re saying as main text) specifically for Cas’s mental health, the picture is clear enough I don’t think anyone would say it’s only subtext or that there’s serious work we have to do to understand it, when Cas had PTSD flashbacks on screen at one point, and continually expresses his lack of worth or has his lack of worth told to him. Again, I wouldn’t think it’s a surprise or something deep down in the text that has not been clearly told to us already, many times.

And since this has been almost entirely a Cas and Dean problem, I would expect this to have to resolve around Dean and not Sam or Sam n Dean or Mary or anything else. Which is why I think the actual resolution will come from Dean’s realisations about it and using him to talk Cas through it, because Cas himself has felt or been told ALL these things in very negative ways already, and I think he needs a friend to help him out. But like with Mary, something that’s already clearly in the text about WHY Dean needs to help him.


	24. The Most Meta Finale (And How To Disown Past Canon Gracefully)

 

 

 

 

> ##  **“The Most Meta Finale”  
> ** _Or, on trying to disown old canon since season 11._
> 
>  

To be honest, I was going to spend today re-watching some season 6 episodes to see if I could come up with a much more modest plausible theory about the reason there was so much AU and time travel nonsense especially in the latter half of the season, was because of a theme of shattering canon, quite deliberately. In a way of staking a claim but also washing hands of messing up the stuff that came before. And instead I ended up giving myself a migraine seeing canon since season 5 as something that’s been repeatedly disowned and carefully distanced from over and over.

In 5x22 Chuck ends the story with his definitive THE END on the whole mess. Of course it’s a bit ridiculous because season 6 was already long foretold and the story was going to have to continue. But Chuck sits there representing the author, in a very unsubtle way, with his finished drink, finished manuscript, and all cleaned up, washing his hands of the Chuck the Prophet persona and going on to chill out and enjoy the ~finished story~

6x15, though, represents in the most meta ridiculous ways the trouble the show felt, or lampooned itself being stuck with, having to continue on into season 6, with the theme in 6x15 and then seriously in 6x20, being what to do when the original story was over, and how to continue on. In The French Mistake “Bob Singer” dismisses the entire idea of season 6 out loud, rolling his eyes at the fact they’re continuing to make the story. At the end of the episode he is killed off, and “Kripke” is taken out with much dramatic fanfare (and the same music as 6x18’s cowboy confrontation, which amuses me no end and is another weird link between the episodes about travels in time and space, testing the bounds of the universe they’re written in, and breaking them.) Of course killing “Kripke” off is the very unsubtle message about the death of the author, a metatextual image that goes with God leaving the story and sending it off into the wild. Kripke (the real one) wrote 6x22 as his final episode, before leaving it all in others’ hands since then. On pretty much every level of the story it’s handed off to writer after writer.

I think it’s interesting that the “original story” is captured within the show as the Winchester Gospels (and my tag for that has plenty of amusing exploration of the ways this makes canon fascinatingly more complex) - but also that it makes SUCH a clear divide between the Original Story aka the subject of the Gospels, and what comes after. Charlie giggles in delight at discovering that the seemingly random hunters she meets later in their story have been the subject of the books and have such a meta backstory, and in 8x20 their lives are turned into a low key conflict between the real and the novelised in the way Charlie interacts with them. 

In 10x05 they see their lives from the outside, Marie’s canon which echoes their lives up to the point the Original Story ends, and we get another line which is one of my favourites in that episode, dismissing everything that comes after 5x22 as terrible fan fiction. Not that Calliope thinks she did much better…

I’ve written somewhere else about the meta episodes or characters such as Metatron showing the writers’ anxiety about taking on the story, and it often comes with this deep horror of the weight on them to continue the story, the meta story within the story also making this shove on them that shackles them to this narrative of the Original Story. I also should have really included Metatron being waved off into the Empty or wherever in between Chuck’s disappearances but I ran out of gif space up there… 

Rewatching 11x20 recently I was deeply struck by how alike Metatron and Chuck are even down to their little curly haired vessels, though of course with wonderfully acted different bearings to make their personalities and place in the story clear. 

Metatron has his own huge part to play in representing the story and the deep, deep anxiety they had about following on from it. In 9x18 Metatron burns a copy of Tall Tales while trying to stand above the old canon, and Chuck takes him to task for it in 11x20, and Metatron folds and admits he’s a terrible copy-cat writer, the anxieties you can see all over his appearances in Carver era while trying to wrangle the story in his favour. And in the end Chuck leaves his desk with a manuscript on it again just like in 5x22, though this time going to what he thinks may be his end:

These moments of trying to end or box off old canon with Death of the Author moments are incredibly numerous. We have Chuck leaving in 5x22, “Kripke” dying in 6x15, the entire plot of 10x05 being about Calliope coming to consume the author, and the meta nonsense there, and then Metatron’s death, Chuck slated to die but saved by network panic about what you can and can’t show on screen… 

This shot of Chuck was a zoom out in comparison to the zoom in on dead “Kripke”, but feels very similar, especially with Amara having raged at him about the story, after in 11x20 Chuck refused to allow it to be her story. Of course the resolution allows the suppressed, forgotten, fridged feminine side of the story to be released, and Mary is brought back. And after Chuck and Amara - now joint authors of the story with her action to bring Mary back creating the narrative of season 12 and flipping the influence from the douchey male creator to the women whose stories were never told, we’ve had ANOTHER absconding of the authors of the story, once again leaving the story in a sort of 5x death of the author situation, and once again like season 6, which season 12 mirrored in many ways, scrambling to understand their ends of the story.

I think the destruction of old canon seems almost like a necessary sort of household chore on the story - a chance to try and reclaim it, to put it into the hands of new author figures within the story, and an attempt for those left behind after showrunners and enormous creative influences like Edlund (who set Metatron up to go, threw him at the story, and left) or Robbie (who set Chuck up, threw him at the story, and left) have gone. Once Carver left somewhere before the end of season 11, we entered the rather strange world of the first time since season 2 not having part of the “Carver Edlund” duo the show’s own God was named after on the writing team, and Dabb, who had been with the show almost as long as Carver and written more episodes than any other writer by like, the end of season 10, so will probably hold that title forever now, was left to remove the characters related to all this from the show, to start fresh.

And it seemed like everyone was having a stab at telling the story - the BMoL in particular twice referenced 9x18 and Metatron in a bid to wrangle control of the story with face on talking to the camera asking for stories or typing them - although lampshaded that the story really wasn’t going their way.

I find it really fascinating then to look back to season 6 and these other examples of trying to disown and distance the story from the old canon, to try and strike out and say the story now belongs to someone else, that these old parts of it are no longer our parts of it, though they influence us and we draw from them. If season 6 was using these AUs and time travel stories (The French Mistake, My Heart Will Go On and Frontierland) to explore the shattering of the world (before 6x21 and 6x21 explored smashing open Purgatory and bringing in new monsters and new plotlines to change the game for season 7), then season 12 referencing the most meta of all these examples when bringing in its own AU seems to me to be very deeply relevant.

The premise of the AU is one that in a way wipes the slate clean - removing the Winchesters, their entire influence, trashing every single word in those gospels, so the story can never happen that way, in a way is the freshest start so far. If season 13 focuses on characters like Michael or Bobby’s experience of this AU and give us another history, an explanation of where it all went different, which all seems fairly likely at this point that we should learn more and understand the motivations and lives lead in the Winchesters’ absence, then I think this really will live up to the threat that this was the most meta finale yet. A throwaway reference to the French Mistake doesn’t SEEM to make it all that meta on the surface. But in the immediate context of the episode, the AU’s description, of being turned on Mary’s deal not being made, was used to absolve her and lift up Sam and Dean in the context of their own world - that they’d made the right choices, that they had authored their own world far better than it would have been without them.

I am very curious to see what Dabb does with his clean slate, after he used season 12 to try and tie up as many loose ends as humanly possible, and churn up references to almost every part of old canon into the story to give it another hearing, another perspective, another chance to be told. I think season 12 was very much the tidying away season and an AU with potentially completely different rules, and definitely an entirely other history and sets of characters, is an interesting way to re-make the show in… something’s image. I suppose these thoughts are for revisiting in the aftermath of the end of the season and whatever that ends up bringing…


	25. Sam & Season 12

I keep going on about how much I loved season 12 for Sam, and I was talking to [@bluestar86](https://tmblr.co/m-wUC-tY8dlf7K9XGjK6Xkw) last night (Or, hyperactively talking AT :P) and they were saying how narratively neat it was to end with Sam at the beginning (facing down a 1x01 parallel scene) again just like Dean ended last season back at the beginning, getting Mary back. Anyway several of the conversations I’ve seen or had about Sam are about how some people feel this season really wasn’t very good for him and he didn’t have anything happen to him… I think I kind of veered onto that for a moment after 12x21 because there was a lot of negativity around especially after we were all excited that the “someone in the life” thing he’d been about in season 11 and Eileen seemed to clearly be a part of had obviously taken such a blow, and the BMoL thing was now also obviously a total failure for him.

I think 12x22 did a pretty good job wrapping that up for Sam, since Berens did all the legwork in the first place for setting Sam up with the BMoL and then answering how that made feel and giving Sam a clear win with it in The Raid pt.2 so I don’t think I need to talk about that too much and also it only represents a fraction of his character stuff, something that was just sort of happening to him this season and actively for only an even smaller part of it, while obviously there had to be a much more real deal to it all.

I don’t know if maybe it’s too obvious or the problem seems to be that people think that he didn’t engage with the story enough for it to seem like it was happening TO him despite what I felt was a clear thing all through the season, but the Sam and Mary stuff was absolutely brilliant this year to me, and I think 12x22 and 12x23 spelled out a lot of stuff about how Sam was interacting with his arc and how the show was telling it, giving me some really clear examples to use. As I was accidentally talking Bluestar’s ear off (oh god I’m scrolling back through this conversation to scavenge my points and I am so sorry about how much of this chat is me… :P) Sam’s always had his shit dealt with largely in an external way, with things often being quite allegorical while Dean has an internal approach (the season 1 queer subtext for Sam vs Dean’s where Sam’s powers are queercoded but Dean just *is* is my favourite example :P). The 22/23 use of putting Dean IN Mary’s head to talk through everything while she didn’t say a word and he stood on the spot and vocalised everything, and then putting Sam in a different reality to passively view and have AU!Bobby explain to him all the relevant exposition to why this was the mirror of the previous episode doing the same thing for Sam is a very very neat back to back image of how their stories get told.

So back to the start:

Obviously Dean and Mary are more emotionally connected anyway because Dean was alive longer at the same time as her previously; in 1x01 he’s defensive of her memory and Sam doesn’t know her so can say something objectively ridiculous like she’s never coming back and Dean can get all angry about him DARING to suggest that. So when Mary comes back, Sam takes 1 and ¾ episodes to find out while Dean starts a much more complicated emotional arc with her dealing with her sacred memory and other personal crap he’s accumulated with her.

> SAM  
> Mom. For me… just, um… having you here… fills in the biggest blank.

Sam doesn’t have a history with her, but he does have a massive emotional investment, so in a way their story can only start when they start actually DOING stuff together. But 12x02 also lays out the problem, that Mary is going to want to run away and not face her past because she DOES have massive personal crap accumulated about Sam, because her presence brings back the original balance where the emotional story was with Dean and the mytharc crap was with Sam, but now it’s about her - she could have had this exact same arc in season 1 if she’d been alive, say taking Jess’s death as the point to leg it and not bear to face Sam, as she feels responsible.

> DEAN   
> Mom, look, I am… thrilled that you’re back. I mean, I’m so damn happy, I-I-I can’t even stand it.  
> MARY  
> I just… it’s just gonna take me a second to catch up, you know?  
> DEAN  
> Yeah, no, no. Look, take – take all the time you need, all right? It’s – it is what it is.  
> MARY  
> And when we do find Sam… how am I gonna face him?  
> DEAN  
> What do you mean?  
> MARY  
> That yellow-eyed thing would never have come for him that night if I… I started all of this.

This all spells out nice and simply the entire sum of what’s going to be their problem this year and what they need to overcome at least in the sense of coming to peace with it. Sam just wants Mary around, Mary can’t be around Sam.

In 12x03 Mary begins the process of running away. Cutting her hair is symbolic of shedding her past image and is important and a step forward in mending with Dean and shedding saint!Mary and the dreaded nightgown image, but regressive in dealing with Sam, because they have such opposite demands on her emotionally. She needs to face the past with Sam, but to move forwards with Dean - which is also too much work for her because she’s being given the huge task of accepting messed up adult Dean because his need for her is so vast so of course it’s daunting (and I’m assuming there’s at least some postnatal depression kind of metaphor going on with all this ESPECIALLY with Sam - of course all mixed up in mytharc but 12x06 gives us that she would rather go hunting than stay and do childcare with Dean). Sam loses out harder because his need is so simple and Mary being flawed and hurting Dean is ultimately for the best - after 12x02 we wrote meta about his drinking alone scene as representing exactly this, and 12x22 and “I hate you” was the point he had to be brought to. But Sam makes no mytharc emotional progress with Mary if they’d spend the entire season joined at the hip catching up and doing generic mother - son activities, because it wasn’t addressing their problems.

12x03 also showed us Mary’s trauma she needed to address, visually, with the John, Dean and Sam parallels in the haunted house. Sam wasn’t even a real baby - he was the broken, burned hollow doll. He was an object of absolute, triggering horror for Mary after she was trapped in the nursery with the doll by the ghosts, a reminder of her death, and the state of the doll very suggestive of what happened to Sam because of her deal - and basically visually displays everything Dean eventually told her what happened to Sam in his speech in 12x22.

  


Moving on to actually looking at how Sam feels about the mytharc, 12x04 and 12x05 featured Magda and Ellie as blatant Sam mirrors. With Magda, Sam gets to look back at his powers arc and say stuff that indicates how he feels about it now, especially when it comes to self-blame and his feeling of being unclean caused by Mary’s deal. (In the long run, Ketch killing her was for our shock value, Sam never learned on screen, and it wasn’t a part of his arc that she died, just something for us :P yay) With Ellie, he has an almost identical conversation about her horror about discovering her family history and that the blood running in her veins has this connection and that she was a fated vessel, if technically only because she was geographically nearby. Both of these mirrors make the episodes for Sam’s part focussed on how he feels about himself and what Mary’s deal did to him, and show he’s actually already, through all his previous trials and tribulations, made some peace with himself.

I mean… “trials” is deliberate word choice, since 8x21 he got to address how he felt unclean, then did the trials and I think even if he didn’t finish them again once he’s had time to process he’s already in a better place than before about it before season 12. I also feel season 5 resolved his original character arc and his actions in Swan Song completely redeemed him and eased his conscience and he literally was a blank slate after that, and also has a demonstrable sense of peace all through Gamble era - even in the middle of season 7 Bobby calls him out about it but ends up agreeing he’s just somehow ended up really zen :P… The problem here is that because Mary coming back was not really on the books back in season 5 Sam’s arc got resolved on a LOT of major points relating to the mytharc and he was really only left with Lucifer and Hell trauma which all dates from AFTER this resolution though as a direct result of it. So these two episodes explain how he’s feeling and that it actually isn’t something Mary should be afraid of because Sam’s in a good place with his past and so on, as he eventually manages to tell her in 12x22.

12x06 has their shared moment of trauma/horrible flashbacks when the 1x01 parallel happens where Sam and Mary get to relive it all with Bucky being tied to the ceiling and dripping blood (On Asa’s face, a sort of child figure to Mary as well) as the warning he’s there. The demon’s MO on killing like that was blatantly only so that we’d get them having this moment.

  
  


12x12 is where it really kicks off again, and after a lull on this while they dealed with other branches of the story, including the start of the nephilim arc, which with the Lucifer connection was already at least tenuously like Sam just for shared backstory - there was some speculation that the nephilim would be a good vessel for Lucifer and he only wanted it for that, which would have made Jack a direct Sam parallel… We didn’t see that although it was obvious Lucifer only wanted to use him to take over the universe and having a loyal son to do it is much easier than relying on his supposed perfect destined vessel, who was a bit harder to control than Lucifer had reckoned on :P Lesson learned since 5x22. Point is it was a sped up version of the process of milennia of figuring out how to get a Perfect Fated Vessel to empower Lucifer for the big take over.

Anyway 

I screamed and knocked my table with my knee so hard I still have a dent in it when Ramiel flashed yellow eyes at Mary along with the old season 1 remember-when-demons-were-scary sound effect. I’m honestly still kind of stunned and impressed that they brought back literal yellow eyed demons to act as a visual aid here. It forced a moment for Mary to tell Sam what she saw and for it to immediately become a Mary and Sam moment sharing this very specific trauma of what a YED meant to them, with Sam asking Mary what she’d gotten them into as if she even knew. Bringing in these princes of hell was again just a sort of visual thing to put on screen to put season 1 and Azazel’s original work with Sam back on the table, again making it clear the mytharc is connected to Sam. Dagon does for Jack what Azazel did for Sam, and even though Dean killed Azazel before his plans could come true he died convinced Sam was ready and going to be everything he was supposed to, leaving a thought for Dean for season 3 that Sam hadn’t been brought back right that segued into him going genuiely dark even if nothing was actually wrong with him like Azazel insinuated; I’m pretty sure Dagon died thinking that this changed nothing too, because Kelly saying Jack was good because he saved her just made Dagon laugh.

Dagon’s time on the show carries this part for Sam even though he had almost no interaction with her, just by visual association of yellow eyes and what she’s doing. [12x17 parallels her directly to Azazel in the staging of the action to 1x21](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/159419649421/justanotheridijiton-1x21-12x17-insp), for example, and she already has her special child in hand unlike Azazel who was having a lot of fun with an ant farm with the entire special children project. (This also escalates into the main problem after the midseason in general making the second half of the show about a mytharc connected to Sam metaphorically in the same way Amara was connected to Dean metaphorically - I suppose 12x08 would be the 9x11 step of all that. Cas was already connected to the nephilim arc in 12x08 when he was the one who broke the news to them, 12x10 making it very clear he felt it was his problem. 12x19 MAKES it his problem. And in general now we know for sure it was used as the end of season episode thing that escalated everything into season 13 and was the final shot of the season.)

So I think when it comes to Sam stuff that gets us back to 12x22 & 23 - with Dean making clear Mary’s deal was the biggest hurt in his speech to her and listing what it did to him with her death and to Sam with the mytharc smacking him in the face because of it. When Mary is back, she repeats the thought from 12x02 that she’s scared of Sam, and Sam appears out of the woodwork to hug her and reassure her with the same message but this time it’s post-communication so they actually all have a real understanding, and don’t have this catastrophic void. Mary’s still fucked up but at least she isn’t ready to flee from Sam in horror, and I think it was that far more than anything about dealing with Dean that made her run in the start of the season, because she could have worked things out awkwardly with him because she had no underlying fear of him in the same way.

And then to 12x23 where the AU is caused by Mary NOT making the deal, and I think it’s important to bear in mind everything about Sam and this so far this season because it’s all been dredged back up again, but in 12x22 he got to make a peace with Mary that they could actually deal with this. It’s not a manipulative, wow the world would suck worse if it DIDN’T happen, be thankful it did. It’s something Sam can see, sure, but we benefit the most in a meta way to know that the message of the show is that Mary’s deal is now all good, at least for how Sam can feel about it. The fact he sees the world as better because of it, and that he’s at peace with what it did to him, is written into the fact this world is showing US that things would be so much more worse without it, and I guess this is the representation of how he feels shown to us in an actual example of a tangible world that expresses this feeling.

And of course as I said the season ends with Sam running off to investigate what happened with Jack, and being the one to follow his scorched footprints into the room with the crib that such a big fuss was made of earlier like he would get a chance to USE it but now is acting like set dressing:

  
  


Again one episode after Sam was represented as a crib all through a long speech (because babies suck at acting :P)

and a reminder that everything for him began with that moment in 1x01. Even though the thought Mary was in was more like 5x16’s memory than 1x01, Sam was brought down from the nursery and his crib was there, and the way Dean woke up in the chair directly paralleled 1x01’s opening with John waking up there. So the two blurred, and the conversation happening over the crib was about Mary’s deal which resulted in Azazel standing over the crib. In the show’s language, nurseries are Sam. And he ends the season in one, looking at a yellow-eyed thing that that crib technically belonged to even if he’s massively over sized for it (lol, even Sam wasn’t that tall a baby)… And whatever happens to Jack, now reflects on Sam, and his original feelings and choices about the demon blood arc and being Lucifer’s vessel. If Jack is pure evil he’s just a dark mirror for Sam to work through some shit. It’s more likely he’ll at least start neutral or as a uncomfortably powerful and volatile blank slate, but like how Mary isn’t exactly fixed, Sam now has a stage set to work through his own stuff that he might not have wanted to touch to blame Mary in the same way Dean had to get to an “I hate you” stage.

(And I wonder about Mary in this because one thing that wasn’t revisited except a brief mention she didn’t remember, was 1x09 and Mary apologising to Sam there as a ghost, right as things were kicking off with his psychic crap. I think also once he knew all the truth later in season 4 & 5, he could also feel that Mary had already apologised and so again he’s in a different place from Mary where he’s ahead of her since she doesn’t remember… I still feel like season 13 will probably be tackling Sam and Mary more directly than this year where it was more Dean and Mary, and Jack for good bad or neutral will offer a way to put a LOT of stuff on screen that we can see through him as Amara was to Dean a representation of his issues made manifest… He doesn’t even have to have a ton of contact with Sam although I am perversely hoping he duckling-imprints on Sam since he was the one who walked in on him freshly born :P But ech, speculation. Who knows how this will go, I can’t really do more than wonder about the longer character arcs and what I’d find funniest to do in the first minute of the next episode :P)

Anyway, this is all for me why season 12 was an incredible Sam season, and I’d been yelling loudly about each and every one of these developments as they happened. Long story short, I’m now an enthusiastic Sam girl because of Dabb and Berens’s combined efforts, and I genuinely feel like this season did him a great service in the story.


	26. 12x01/12x21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> blood/self harm cw

Just another Mary & Sam thing I realised that despite all the comments on it, I don’t have a gifset of this anywhere on my blog, so… To the giffing workbench. I hope it doesn’t need saying how much I love Mary and Sam’s joint storyline this season and this is a great little thing…  They both get messed around in the head by Toni and Sam managed to pull through and use his hand actively to save himself (and he has the whole history of the cut on his hand from season 7 which after 12x01 everyone and their mum commented on). He has that sort of grounding of what it all means to him. Mary had rather less of that - her vulnerability is waaay more obvious when looking at her general character stuff from this season - she’s alone, miserable, depressed, at this point isolated from her family because good intentions spiralled horrifically out of control and now she’s being brainwashed, and all that cut can do is remind her that it’s happened to her. It takes waaay more to bring her back and it all happens to her much more passively than Sam attempting to use this to save himself. Of course Sam still ends up needing saving by Mary in 12x02 but point is all the symbolism happened in 12x01 about this :P

(This is pretty much all I’ve got, I mostly just made this for filing purposes)


End file.
